There was a lot of finger pointing after last week's news that the first ever round of U.S. Department of Transportation FASTLANE grants will not include any projects in Maryland. Gov. Larry Hogan's office suggested partisan motivations from the Obama administration and said Maryland's largely Democratic delegation didn't advocate enough. In response, Rep. Elijah Cummings floated the idea that maybe Governor Hogan damaged the state's relationship with U.S. DOT when he abruptly canceled the Red Line, spurning $900 million of federal funds that DOT recommended go toward that project.
It's hard to judge these assertions without getting inside the minds of the elected officials and bureaucrats involved in the process. The simplest explanation is that the odds were against us. Out of 212 applications vying for $800 million, only 18 were awarded grants. However, we can expect another round of FASTLANE grants next year, and it behooves us to study this year's awards for hints that will increase the odds of seeing the federal dollars come to improve transportation in Maryland.
Clearly the biggest winner in this year's round is our next door neighbor, the Commonwealth of Virginia. It received the largest grant award: $165 million for the Atlantic Gateway, a public-private partnership to unlock the 1-95 Corridor project through road, transit and rail projects. Also, Virginia residents will benefit more than anyone else from the second largest award: $90 million to Washington, D.C., and the National Parks Service to reconstruct the Arlington Memorial Bridge. Together those two grants represent nearly one-third of the entire pot. Why was Virginia so successful? A possible reason was the thoroughness and creativity of their application.
For the Atlantic Gateway project, Virginia provided a comprehensive solution to easing transportation bottlenecks on the I-95 corridor, including expanded HOT toll lanes, replacement of a bridge on I-95, freight rail capacity expansions, transit expansions and acquisition of a rail line for future southeast high-speed rail. Rather than focus on singular transportation travel options (e.g. vehicles), Virginia focused its gateway project application holistically on how to improve travel by providing multiple options to move people and goods efficiently, and not just private automobiles, trucks or rail cars.
Virginia's package takes advantage of a key aspect of the FASTLANE program: Congress earmarked 89 percent of the grant money for freight projects on highways; only 11 percent can go to rail. This seriously increases the odds against an otherwise worthy rail-only project like the Howard Street Tunnel. Ideally, Congress would remove the emphasis on moving freight by highways, because it is much more cost-effective, environmentally sound and safer to move freight by rail. But until that happens, Maryland needs to consider ways to improve its chances under the current grant guidelines.
Also of note, and related to Congressman Cummings' concerns about loss of trust, Virginia recently started using an objective and transparent scoring process to prioritize transportation projects and show the return on taxpayer investments to the public. The Virginia law that created the new process ("Smart Scale") was passed with near unanimous support by a Republican-led legislature and signed by a Democratic governor. The overarching goal is to make sure the best transportation projects get funded, not just those with the most powerful political supporters. Maryland, on the other hand, had a rancorous debate over passing a similar law during this past legislative session. After falsely claiming its passage would ensure the demise of every road and bridge project in the state, Governor Hogan saw his veto of the bill overridden by the General Assembly. Despite its passage, the Governor continues to lambaste the new law and vows to ignore the scoring process. Imagine an employee at U.S. DOT weighing competing applications from these two states. Which is a safer bet for taxpayer money?
FASTLANE will be back with $850 million next year, and Maryland will have another chance to bring home some federal funds for critical transportation projects. To increase its odds of success the Maryland DOT needs to do three things: think comprehensively and creatively across transportation modes; leverage more state and private resources; and demonstrate it is a trustworthy partner.
Meanwhile, Maryland's congressional delegation should lead the charge to eliminate the bias in the FASTLANE program that tilts almost all of the funds to moving freight on our roads and highways. The blame game is unavoidable after missing out on a big opportunity, but the best response will be to come back stronger next time.
Eric Norton (enorton@cmtalliance.org) is the director of policy and programs at the Central Maryland Transportation Alliance, where Brian O'Malley (bomalley@cmtalliance.org) is the president and CEO.