Future on Hold in MD

[mrpete]

According to a radio interview with Sec. Porcari, due to the dramatic shortfall in state revenues, MDOT will defer at least $1.0 billion in already approved projects and programs until later years when revenues may be available. Only high priority safety, repair and maintenance work will not be deferred.

So if your favorite actual project/improvement has not been already paid for.....it ain't gonna happen anytime soon.

Separate but related, USDOT's Highway Trust fund is out of $$$$. As a result Federally funded road projects carried out by state and local governments will not be reimbursed for costs already incurred to date. This does not affect FTA $$ as the funding formulas are different.

[WMAveteran]

According to a radio interview with Sec. Porcari, due to the dramatic shortfall in state revenues, MDOT will defer at least $1.0 billion in already approved projects and programs until later years when revenues may be available. Only high priority safety, repair and maintenance work will not be deferred.

So if your favorite actual project/improvement has not been already paid for.....it ain't gonna happen anytime soon.

Separate but related, USDOT's Highway Trust fund is out of $$$$. As a result Federally funded road projects carried out by state and local governments will not be reimbursed for costs already incurred to date. This does not affect FTA $$ as the funding formulas are different.

Today (9/11/2008) THE WASHINGTON POST ran an article about the spending cuts.  "About $25 million was deleted for engineering work for the Purple Line . . . And $42.5 million in engineering work was cut for the Corridor Cities Transitway."  This pretty much assures that all of us on this site will have passed on to the rapid busway in the sky before these projects are completed.

[Scrabbleship]

It's time for Annapolis to change how they're funding things. They could have prevented this shortfall from happening...I just know they could have.

I wasn't here then, but was Erlich THAT bad? This all seems like a miniature version of the fiasco going on in New York that came up after Spitzer.

[RailBus63]

I wasn't here then, but was Erlich THAT bad? This all seems like a miniature version of the fiasco going on in New York that came up after Spitzer.

Spitzer's resignation wasn't the reason why New York's TA's are dealing with a funding shortfall. This problem goes back a number of years. New York State has a better record than most of supporting public transportation, but it largely accomplished this by borrowing ridiculously large sums of money. These bonds will have to be paid off and those payments will drain funds for future operations and improvements for years to come. This was somewhat manageable when the state's economy was doing well, but like most other areas of the country, the Empire State has seen its tax revenues go down (especially in relation to Wall Street's ongoing woes). To his credit, new Gov. David Paterson is not willing to just jack up taxes and fees on residents and businesses and is pushing back on the political establishment in Albany to enact reforms that will reduce the size and cost of state government. Time will tell if he's successful and how this will impact transportation in the state, but in the end I believe that the MTA and the other transit agencies here will still be better off than TA's in most other states.

[Scrabbleship]

I wasn't here then, but was Erlich THAT bad? This all seems like a miniature version of the fiasco going on in New York that came up after Spitzer.

Spitzer's resignation wasn't the reason why New York's TA's are dealing with a funding shortfall. This problem goes back a number of years. New York State has a better record than most of supporting public transportation, but it largely accomplished this by borrowing ridiculously large sums of money. These bonds will have to be paid off and those payments will drain funds for future operations and improvements for years to come. This was somewhat manageable when the state's economy was doing well, but like most other areas of the country, the Empire State has seen its tax revenues go down (especially in relation to Wall Street's ongoing woes). To his credit, new Gov. David Paterson is not willing to just jack up taxes and fees on residents and businesses and is pushing back on the political establishment in Albany to enact reforms that will reduce the size and cost of state government. Time will tell if he's successful and how this will impact transportation in the state, but in the end I believe that the MTA and the other transit agencies here will still be better off than TA's in most other states.

I was referring more to everything not-transit that has been under fire since Spitzer's resignation. Like the SUNY system and its lack of permanent leadership and property tax caps and all that other stuff. The sort of stuff that I've noticed Maryland seems to lack, in 6.5 months here the only time I've heard anything about "too high" property taxes were some lawn signs I saw just north of the downtown core of Rockville.

New York's state government needs to be a lot smaller and less corrupt, but the upstate TA's kind of brought their woes down on themselves by keeping fares artifically low for longer than they should have. RTS in Rochester just lowered theirs to $1 after 13 years at $1.25 and CDTA's haven't budget from $1 for the same length of time. Shouldn't fares at least keep up slightly with inflation since that $1 in 1995 is $1.35 today?