The mass transit wish list comes in several colors ? the Purple, Green and Red lines ? but what?s lacking for all is the color of money.
A state study of transit funding identifies the same sources of new funds that previous studies have advanced, principally a nickel hike in the gasoline tax to 28.5 cents per gallon or a .25 percent increase in the sales tax. The legislature raised registrations fees under Gov. Robert Ehrlich, but that generates only about half of the $300 million needed for the transportation trust fund, said Sen. James Ed DeGrange, chairman of the transportation budget subcommittee.
Without the cash flow, the department will run out of funding to preserve the current Metro and bus systems in Baltimore and Washington, D.C..
Maryland is one of only two states that fund two major transit systems, the study noted. In most other states, some form of tax in the region served by the system is used to pay for transit. In Virginia, for instance, Arlington and Fairfax counties pay their share of Metro with a dedicated regional sales tax.
Close to $6 billion in new money is needed to finance what MDOT calls the big four: the Purple Line, a light rail line or transit-way from Bethesda to New Carrolton; the Corridor Cities Transitway, a dedicated bus-way that extends Metro?s red line up the Interstate 270 corridor to Clarksburg; and the green and red lines in Baltimore, expanding the Metro system in the city.
The focus is on the gasoline and sales tax, because those sales and use taxes are now lower than in 45 other states. When Maryland raised its gasoline tax to 23.5 cents per gallon in the 1990s, “we were in the top five,” said Transportation Secretary John Porcari told legislators. The same is true for road projects, but Porcari focused on transit funding.
“We?re now in the midrange,” he said.
