Blame President Bush for the Iraq war, for the economy, for leading children to adopt bad grammar. But don’t blame him for hurting the chances of the Red Line. That is our own bureaucrats’ fault, despite their protests to the contrary.
Last week the Federal Transit Administration withdrew $2 million in federal funds from Maryland that were supposed to be used for studying alternative routes to the proposed Red Line, rapid transit to run from Woodlawn to Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center.
“This is just one final anti-transit action by the Bush administration on its way out the door. We are looking forward to January 20 and a president who values transit as a means of strengthening communities,” said Baltimore City Red Line coordinator Danyell Diggs.
But the only thing the feds did was follow the rules.
As The Examiner reported in June, Maryland Transit Administration planners let the money, an earmark, lapse by missing a deadline last December to file a report on alternatives to the proposed route. John D. Porcari, secretary of the Maryland Department of Transportation, denied any wrongdoing. In a June 6 letter to The Examiner, he said the paper “grossly mischaracterized the status of the transit project” and that “counter to your report, no federal funding has been lost, and the project is moving forward.” Maybe he still held a sliver of hope at that point that the money would be returned.
But as we’ve noted before, this is not an isolated incident for the state’s top transportation planners. A state report recently noted that the MTA lost $475,000 over a four-month period that auditors studied from employees stealing money from fare boxes. And regularly broken fare boxes mean the agency collects a lot less than it should before any malfeasance.
With President-elect Barack Obama proposing to release billions in direct aid to states and cities for “shovel-ready” infrastructure projects, it means those least capable of managing money will be put in charge of stewarding vast sums on our behalf. We welcome an explanation from Porcari as to how his administration is preparing to manage any infusion of new money and the safeguards in place to ensure none of it is wasted through laziness, fraud or incompetence that have marked its management of the Red Line project and MTA bus service.
