Larry Hogan may no longer be in the governor’s mansion – but the controversial toll lanes he proposed for portions of I-495 and I-270 are likely to remain part of the proposed widening project for those highways, Maryland Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore) said Monday.
“This is a very, very, very tough one for a variety of reasons — and some [of them] are not obvious,” Ferguson said during a meeting of the District 18 Democratic Breakfast Club.
Ferguson was confronted by an audience question about the express toll lanes, frequently derided by critics as ‘Lexus Lanes’ for the high fees charged during rush hours.
Hogan (R) first proposed the toll lanes in 2017 as part of a public/private partnership in which the I-495/I-270 would be built and operated by a non-governmental contractor. In August, Hogan’s successor, Wes Moore (D), announced a revised proposal to relieve congestion by seeking federal funding — while prioritizing the American Legion Bridge as part of a phrased plan placing a greater emphasis on mass transit and ridesharing.
Moore’s revised plan retains elements of the toll lanes, which critics complain are both inequitable and unsustainable. But Ferguson suggested that to totally jettison the toll lanes could delay congestion relief for more than half a decade along the American Legion Bridge and the highways feeding into it.
“If there is going to be any progress on the American Legion Bridge issue and the congestion there, it is likely going to include a toll lane — unless it is a restart of six years’ worth of planning to get back to a new record of decision,” Ferguson said, referring to what is known in federal bureaucratic-speak as the ROD.
The ROD is the last step in the National Environmental Policy Act process for assessing projects such as interstate highways following approval of a final environmental impact statement (EIS). The EIS for the I-495/I-270 widening was approved in August 2022, nearly five years after Hogan first proposed it.
“The EIS that was approved by the Federal Highway [Administration] is one that does require toll lanes in order to move anything forward. Otherwise, a new EIS is going to be required to start the project over,” Ferguson said, adding that the toll lanes are “baked in…as part of the official program.”
Ferguson, a Rockville native, emphasized that “we have to have multimodal…we also have to invest in bus rapid transit and other forms of transportation.” But he also said, “I don’t see that project moving forward without a toll lane given the approved record of decision.”
It will be up to the Maryland Department of Transportation to make the final recommendation on moving ahead based on the current EIS or going back to the drawing board, Ferguson said.
The department is wrestling with “very similar” issues with regard to the Red Line light rail project in his adopted home city of Baltimore, Ferguson said. Hogan abandoned that project shortly after taking office eight years ago, but Moore recently announced plans to revive it.
“There are parts of the [Red Line] project that I think maybe don’t make a lot of sense. But the record of decision is in place, and so it’s [a choice of] either having some level of progress on some investment and maintain that structure with adjustments — or restart,” Ferguson said. “I don’t see the [Moore] administration restarting on either of those projects, if I had to guess.”
The I-495/I-270 final EIS itself has been the subject of controversy, with critics questioning the adequacy and integrity of portions of it.
“What has been relayed to me is because of the timing of the federal grants, to move any project forward [state transportation officials] have to rely on the basis of the EIS — and try to stay within its boundaries,” Ferguson said.
Another major transportation issue the General Assembly will soon be grappling with is possible changes to ensure adequate funding of Maryland’s transportation trust fund, with major implications for those who use the state’s roads, Ferguson said.
“Maryland is one of the few places that has this unique system where all of our transportation dollars sit in one place – the transportation trust fund,” he noted. “We have to have a very realistic conversation about the long-term sustainability of the transportation trust fund.
“One of the key drivers of that is around electric vehicles. Climate change is an existential threat, [and while] moving to electric vehicles is the right thing to do, you have to make sure that the infrastructure exists,” Ferguson said. The challenge, he said, is that “about 23 percent of the transportation trust fund is funded through the gas tax” at the present time.
Although electric vehicles “still use the same roads and bridges – and in fact are heavier vehicles than combustion engine vehicles and have a greater wear and tear on the roads – electric vehicles are not participating in the user fee that we have always relied on as the ‘gas tax’ to fund the transportation trust,” Ferguson continued.
“This is going to be a very real and hard conversation that we have to have – we’re not alone here in the state of Maryland — but we are feeling it acutely because Maryland has been one of the states with the higher adoption of electric vehicles,” he said. “As it become cheaper to insure an electric vehicle over a combustion engine vehicle, we’re going to see this transition happening even faster. And if we do not start to have real conversations about our funding priorities now, we’re going to be in trouble by the time it hits.”
The number of electric or hybrid vehicles registered in Maryland has doubled in the last couple of years. In the first quarter of 2023, electric vehicles accounted for one of every 10 new car sales, according to the Alliance for Automotive Innovation data.
A commission on transportation and infrastructure needs – the so-called TRAIN Commission created by the Maryland General Assembly earlier this year — needs “to try to lay out the framework for the next two years, so that…we can really take up what we’re going to do to fund our transportation infrastructure across the state of Maryland” during the General Assembly’s current four-year term, Ferguson said.
