Commuters may be crawling through intersections around Fort Meade because of delays in state funding as Anne Arundel tries to accommodate the thousands of jobs expected by 2011.
“This could be a serious threat to our future plans,” said Bob Leib, Anne Arundel’s Base Realignment and Closure coordinator.
“This is certainly could to make it harder to us.”
Anne Arundel had hoped for complete funding for six intersection improvements around the Odenton installation, which is expected to see 5,000 new jobs from BRAC and another 5,000 at the National Security Agency in the fort.
The improvements are designed to help alleviate traffic on the main roads leading to the installation, especially Route 175, which is not slated for expansion until 2015.
But state transportation officials this week deferred $16.3 million — more than one-third of the total project costs — for the improvements to offset $115 million in declining transportation revenues.
“We didn’t have the money for full funding of construction [of the intersection improvements],” said Doug Simmons, deputy administrator of the State Highway Administration.
“For the time being, this is not going to slow us down one bit.”
The projects will receive full funding when the economic conditions improve and some money already exists for the improvements, officials said.
However, deferring money may result in some intersections getting neglected, Leib said.
“We need to make sure everyone’s priorities are straight,” he said.
The deferments also push back the proposed parking garage at the Odenton MARC rail station, a likely transit stop for incoming workers to Fort Meade who commute from Virginia.
Leib said state officials are pairing the garage’s construction with planned transit-oriented development around the station in the coming years.
State officials also plan to push back rail station and rail line expansion on both MARC lines until the economy improves.
“Commuters will still see increased capacity through new rail cars and locomotives we’ve already bought,” said Jack Cahalan, spokesman for the Maryland Department of Transportation.
Federal officials are eyeing Maryland’s transportation investment, even as Congress also is struggling to pay for road and rail projects itself.
President Bush is expected to sign a bill pumping more money into the federal transportation trust fund, which needed $8 billion to account for slower than expected federal gas tax revenues.
U.S. Rep. John Sarbanes, D-District 3, said during a military installation meeting Friday that the state needed to keep up its funding commitments to MARC to ensure what few federal dollars are available will Maryland’s way.
“These are tough times for all of us, … but it is important that these projects do not fall off the line,” he said.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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