Montgomery County Council members are considering taxing businesses’ parking spaces to make up for millions in transportation funding cuts from state officials.
The funding shortfalls also have officials considering public-private partnerships to build roads. Virginia has partnered with private-sector firms to build toll lanes on the Capital Beltway and the expansion of Metrorail to Washington Dulles International Airport. Council President Mike Knapp will be attending a conference next week to explore how Montgomery could potentially follow suit.
“If the state scales back on what they were going to do in terms of maintenance, how do we respond as jurisdictions?” Knapp recently said. “Public-private partnerships are worth looking into.”
Meanwhile, Montgomery Councilwoman Nancy Floreen has asked leaders to consider a $250 annual tax on most businesses’ parking spaces, saying the county needs to focus on solving its own transportation problems because state funding is unreliable.
This week Maryland Transportation Secretary John Porcari slashed $1.1 billion in transportation funding, including roughly $16 million to improve intersections near Bethesda’s National Naval Medical Center, which will soon absorb Walter Reed Army Medical Center’s services. State help for one of Montgomery’s top congestion-relief projects — constructing an interchange to replace stoplights at Georgia Avenue and Randolph Road — will also be delayed at least three years.
“You can see that we have a problem in getting these projects funded,” Floreen said.
Floreen’s idea came from a report issued last fall by a task force she commissioned to come up with alternative ways to fund transportation needs.
If companies were charged $250 a year for employee’s assigned spaces and private paid parking incurred the same per space, the county could raise $75 million, Floreen’s group found.
Councilman George Leventhal praised Floreen’s efforts, but worried how the state would view the idea.
“The more willingness we show to tax ourselves, the more likely it is we will see our state allocation decrease even further,” Leventhal said.
Floreen countered that “not raising the money on our own over the past 20 years has not resulted in vast amounts of additional state funding for us so far.”
“Money slated to be spent in six years doesn’t guarantee a ribbon cutting for people elected to four-year terms,” Floreen said, “so they leave it for somebody else.”
