As a recent analysis from the Department of Legislative Services makes clear, the Maryland Transportation Authority is headed toward a financial jam. Whether Gov. Martin O'Malley wants to or not, that likely means raising tolls - if not in the current term then probably in the next.
And just like the general fund deficit, the Transportation Authority's problems are not of Mr. O'Malley's making. More than anything else, two projects are putting the agency in the red: the $2.4 billion Intercounty Connector and the $1.2 billion widening of Interstate 95 from Baltimore to White Marsh.
By any standard, those are huge undertakings, and they've sapped the authority's cash reserves. There are other ways the state can raise money for transportation, but none is likely to be chosen. It was, after all, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s aversion to increasing the gas tax to pay for road and transit projects such as the ICC that is largely to blame for this shortfall in the first place.
The doubling of various tolls in 2001 and 2003 provided the authority with a major financial boost, but not nearly enough to pay for all this construction.
Administration officials insist that no decision has been made to raise tolls and the authority has embarked on a series of cost-cutting moves. They include capping the growth of the agency's operating budget and postponing certain capital projects.
But that would seem to merely delay the inevitable. Even if the authority embarks on no additional construction, rising maintenance costs are unavoidable. As officials ruefully note, it costs more money to paint one span of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge than it did to build the first one.
The reality is that Maryland is headed into an era of more and higher tolls. It's unavoidable. When completed in 2012, the ICC and the toll lanes of I-95 will feature congestion pricing. Someone who drives one of these roads in peak hours will pay more than someone driving when it's less busy. Most other toll facilities will probably follow suit, and that ultimately may be how the revenue is raised. The state must squeeze the greatest efficiencies possible from existing infrastructure.
Commuters may be none too happy about this state of affairs, but the Transportation Authority is no more immune to the rising costs of fuel and asphalt than anyone else. In the end, somebody has to pay for several billion dollars in new roads, and if you're a toll facility user, it's probably going to be you.