The Baltimore Metro rapid rail transit line operates along a 15.5-mile (24.8 km) long route between downtown Baltimore and Owings Mills in the northwest suburbs, with 14 stations serving the communities along the system.

Overview

The Baltimore Metro rapid rail transit line operates along a 15.5-mile (24.8 km) long route between downtown Baltimore and Owings Mills in the northwest suburbs, with 14 stations serving the communities along the system, and it was built in three sections (opened 8 miles in 1983, 6 miles in 1987 and 1.5 miles in 1995) for a total cost of $1.392 billion. Metro trains are available every eight minutes during morning and afternoon rush hours and every 10-20 minutes other times. Traveling the entire line takes approximately 25 minutes. Free parking is available at all Metro stations between Owings Mill and Mondawmin, inclusive. In addition, many MTA bus lines serve the Metro Subway stations, offering convenient connections to popular Baltimore area destinations. On September 2, 2001, a milestone was reached with Sunday service being added, providing full 7-days-per-week service. Even though most of the Baltimore Metro is aboveground, the term "subway" is commonly used to denote the system, both today as well as in the past back to the system planning stages in the 1970s.

The original planning name for the Baltimore heavy rail system was the Baltimore Region Rapid Transit System (BRRTS). That rather unpleasant-sounding acronym gave way to the name Baltimore Metro, which was what the subway was called upon opening on November 21, 1983. "Metro" is a name recognized around the world in many cities for a rapid rail transit system. Further extensions of the Baltimore Metro are desirable, but none are actively planned at this time. Planning studies and maps back in the 1970s detailed an extensive Baltimore region heavy rapid rail transit system 71 miles long, with extensive downtown and suburban coverage similar in concept to the Washington Metro (WMATA). Due to funding limitations, Baltimore today has 15.5 miles of heavy rail transit and 30 miles of light rail transit. Both lines traverse the downtown, and three suburban lines reach the northwest, north, and south suburbs. The light rail extensions provide service to Baltimore-Washington International (BWI) Airport and downtown Pennsylvania Station (Amtrak and MARC commuter rail). The Metro line is completely grade-separated. The light rail system is mostly grade-separated, with the line running on the surface of Howard Street in downtown Baltimore.

MDOT photo

Early Planning for Rapid Rail Transit in Baltimore Area

Serious planning for rapid rail transit (as defined by electric heavy rail transit with railroads with at least 2 tracks and full grade separation, and urban and suburban service with high-platform multiple-unit trains) for the Baltimore area began in the 1960s with an officially sponsored study that resulted in a report published in 1968, looking at engineering and economic feasibility as well as ridership projections. This report provided proposed line locations for a 71-mile-long (114.3 km) regional rapid rail transit system with six radial lines and with a downtown hub, with extensive downtown and suburban coverage similar in concept to the Washington Metrorail system which was also in early planning and design stages then. Due to funding limitations, further studies refined the Baltimore system concept to a smaller 28-mile-long (44.8 km) system report called the Phase 1 Plan, published in 1971, using two lines from the 71-mile system, and the Phase 1 Plan system had a northwest line from the downtown to Owings Mills, and a south line from the downtown to Glen Burnie and Friendship International Airport (today's Baltimore-Washington International Airport (BWI)). The two lines in the Phase 1 Plan had a downtown junction at an underground two-level transfer station at Charles Center. The rapid rail transit south line eventually fell victim to funding limitations and local opposition.

Funding Secured to Begin Baltimore Subway Construction

The whole saga of securing the public financial and political commitments to begin the construction of Baltimore's first subway line, took a number of years and a lot of work at the local, state and federal level. Baltimore like most large cities had an extensive trolley/streetcar system for a number of decades, which gradually became obsolete and gave way to systems of motor buses operating on the road and highway system. Baltimore's last trolley lines closed in 1962. Subway/elevated rail systems in general have much higher average speeds and much higher passenger capacity, compared to the old trolleys.

The initial section of the system is the 8-mile long Section "A", which was placed under construction in December 1976 and was opened to passenger service November 21, 1983, and the total final cost for engineering, right-of-way and construction, was $797 million, funded 80% with federal transit funds and 20% from the Maryland Transportation Trust Fund. This was the largest public works project in the history of Maryland up to that time. [9], [6], others

The 1968 and 1971 BRRTS planning studies laid the groundwork for the Baltimore Metro, but no funding for construction was allocated then. A major legislative struggle took place in the 1976 Maryland General Assembly, and the outcome was full funding being put in place to build and make operational the 8 miles of Section "A". A ceremonial groundbreaking occurred in 1974, but significant construction did not begin until December 1976. Baltimore's delegation to the Maryland Senate helped win a narrow victory in a confrontation with rural and suburban highway interests in the 1976 Assembly. The Baltimore legislators obtained help from senators representing the Washington suburbs, and Governor Marvin Mandel helped to persuade the uncommitted members to favor the subway. [3]

In 1965, the Baltimore Area Mass Transportation Plan was published, and it suggested a six-leg rail system, extending to all corners of the city, including a central city loop. That plan led to the 1968 BRRTS Feasibility and Preliminary Engineering study. The northwest line was seen as the ideal starting point for construction of the system, because the northwest corridor was the most congested traffic corridor in the city. The northeast corridor in the city was also pretty congested, but the advantage that the northwest line had was that an existing mainline railroad corridor, the Western Maryland Railway, occupied that corridor from Wabash Avenue to Reisterstown Road, and would make an ideal path for almost half of the northwest line to parallel aboveground, with just over half of the 8-mile line needing to be built belowground. [27]

In 1971, the MDOT Mass Transit Administration (MTA) officially recommended the 28-mile-long Phase 1 Plan that I mentioned above. Without much controversy, the 1972 Maryland General Assembly voted in 1972 to finance the construction of Phase 1. The whole development process had gone fairly smoothly up until then, but then various major controversies erupted. [27]

Citizens and political leaders in Anne Arundel County expressed fears about "undesirable elements" coming into their area via the subway, and many transit buffs cite this as the origin of the term "LOOT rail", a takeoff of "light rail" meaning that criminals without cars who live in the city would take the subway to the suburbs, commit burglaries and robberies, and then take the subway back to the city; and that by building a subway to the suburbs, that such crimes would be greatly facilitated. Most people would think this line of thinking to be nonsense, since most people know how to drive and can borrow or steal a car if they have criminal intentions. Still, in some other cities as well, including the D.C. area, a significant number of suburbanites had these kind of general fears about having city subway lines extended out to the suburbs.

The upshot of this in the Baltimore area, was that in November 1975, MTA officially eliminated the entire south line from the Phase 1 Plan, in response to the above kind of complaints. Controversy over the planned Northwest Expressway delayed the portion of Phase 1 that would extend beyond the Reisterstown Road area near the northwest Baltimore city line, to Owings Mills in the northwest suburbs. The plan was to put the rapid rail transit line and stations in the median of the expressway from Reisterstown Plaza to Owings Mills, and controversies over the expressway's location delayed the process, and then finally the proposed section of the expressway from the I-695 Baltimore Beltway to the Wabash Avenue / Liberty Heights Avenue area in the City of Baltimore was deleted from the plans due to inability to find an acceptable location for the expressway. Since MDOT was planning the Northwest Expressway and the rapid rail transit line west of the city line as a jointly designed and constructed project with a joint environmental impact statement, the delays on the expressway also delayed the rail line. This controversy also occurred in 1975, and at that point MTA indefinitely postponed the Owings Mills extension, leaving only the 8 miles of the northwest line from the downtown to the northwest city line in Phase 1, known as Section "A". At that point, Section "A" was estimated to cost $721 million, or $90 million per mile at 1975 prices, and substantial Maryland legislative skepticism arose to the wisdom of spending that much money on a relatively short rapid rail transit line, which had no firm plans for any extensions at any time in the near future, a line which would have much more limited ridership potential than the previous, more extensive system plans would have attracted. [27]

The 8-mile Section "A" was the subject of a major battle in the Maryland General Assembly in early 1976. The General Assembly needed to approve legislation for Maryland's 20% share of the funding for Section "A", which was $144.2 million of the then-estimated $721 million total cost. That was a large sum of state tax dollars, and many rural legislators began raising objections, fearing that the subway would take money away from improvements to their highways. This was at a time when over 20 miles of the then-proposed I-68 National Freeway in Western Maryland was still unfunded, and when key 2-lane bottlenecks existed on the Eastern Shore on US-50 and MD-404 at Cambridge and Vienna and Denton with 4-lane bypasses proposed but as of then unfunded. US-50 and MD-404 on the Eastern Shore are major vacation travel routes between the Baltimore-Washington area and the Atlantic Ocean beaches at Ocean City and Rehoboth Beach. Maryland has a large demographic political diversity, highly Democratic in the Baltimore-Washington area, but more Republican-leaning on the Eastern Shore and in Western Maryland. As is typical in federal and state legislatures in the U.S., the Maryland Senate is apportioned based on land area, giving the rural senatorial legislators power above proportion to their population. Governor Marvin Mandel and Baltimore Mayor William Donald Shaefer were the most prominent advocates in favor of the subway, and Mandel spent over a year marshaling the votes to pass the subway appropriation, meeting individually with each delegate and senator. In April 1976, though, 22 senators opposed to the subway mounted an 8-day filibuster to try to block it. The filibuster ended with a compromise, and the vote was taken in the Senate, and the state budget, which included the subway appropriation, passed by two votes. The budget bill then went to the House of Delegates, where it passed easily on the last day of the session. This cleared the final hurdle to construction of Section "A", which began in December of 1976. [27]

Section "A" Design and Construction

Section "A" of the Baltimore Metro opened on November 21, 1983 at a cost of $797 million. It runs from Charles Center Station in downtown Baltimore to the Reisterstown Plaza Station near the northwest city line. It is 8 miles (12.8 km) long, with the first 4-1/2 miles in subway, coming to the surface for about a half mile, and the remaining 3 miles is on aerial structure. So the stations Charles Center, Lexington Market, State Center, Upton, Penn-North, and Mondawmin are in subway, and West Cold Spring, Rogers Avenue, and Reisterstown Plaza are aerial. Section "A" construction ran from 1976 to 1983, and was the most expensive Maryland public works project up to that time. Completion marked the opening of the first heavy rail subway in Baltimore. Metro trains are up to six cars long.

Construction began in December 1976, and proceeded relatively smoothly after overcoming some early problems in the construction of the subway Charles Center Station in the downtown. The six subway stations were built by the cut-and-cover construction method. This included excavation of the street and under the street, underpinning of some adjacent buildings, and relocation of underground utilities, all of which had to be kept in service without disruption. When cut-and-cover construction passed under a street, the heavy downtown motor vehicle traffic was carried on timber beam decking, which provided a temporary street roadway. Subway construction took place in the huge excavated trench below. The concrete station box was built in the trench, with the access shafts and escalators to the street. Then the area around and over the station area was backfilled with earth up to the street level, and the street pavement was rebuilt in its former location. Station finishing work completed the station. All subway stations have three levels - an entrance, a mezzanine where fares are paid, and a center platform for boarding trains. The subway stations also have escalators, stairways, farecard vending machines, fare gates, and elevators for the elderly and handicapped. [5]

All the tunnel sections between the underground stations, were built by the bored tunnel construction method. There is a total of 1-1/2 mile of subway that was tunneled through soft earth using a hydraulic shield which is jacked against an erected steel liner. Compressed air is forced into the tunnel to stabilize the surrounding earth while the shield advances. Another total of 1-3/4 miles of subway was tunneled through rock, which was pre-split with small explosive charges, and the rock and soil was excavated from the tunnel. In each method, a reinforced concrete subway tunnel was then built inside the excavated tunnel. Tracks, power and signaling equipment was built inside the concrete tunnel. The underground portions of the system were built under portions of Baltimore Street, Eutaw Street, Pennsylvania Avenue and Liberty Heights Avenue; and three horizontal curve transitional underground sections were not under a specific street. The Penn North Station is the deepest station on the system, with its train platform 120 feet below street level, and long escalators carrying patrons between the street level and the station mezzanine. [5]

At the end of the Mondawmin Tunnel, the rapid transit line transitions from subway to aerial structure, with a half mile of line at surface level in the transition. Aerial line is built by clearing the land, then driving steel piles to reinforce the foundations of the aerial structure, then building footers as foundations, then building a reinforced concrete column on each footer, then building a T-shaped reinforced concrete block on top of the column, then laying steel girders on top of the piers from pier to pier, then building a reinforced concrete deck for trackway on top of the girders. Tracks, power and signaling equipment was built on the aerial structure. The aerial stations, like the subway stations, have three levels - a ground level entrance, a mezzanine and a platform. Trains pull up to center platforms which are about 25 to 28 feet above the ground. At the aerial stations, parking spaces and kiss-n-ride bays are provided, and feeder buses link bus service from neighboring communities to the rapid transit line. Reisterstown Plaza Station has a parking lot for 2,500 automobiles, Rogers Avenue Station has a parking lot for 320 automobiles, and West Cold Spring Station has a parking lot for 270 automobiles. [5]

The system and its trains are powered and operated by electricity, which is supplied to the system by a series of power substations adjacent to the rail line. Traction power to the trains is supplied by a contact third rail, which is on the railroad track bed just outside of the two train running rails.

The Operations Control Center for Baltimore Metro is located atop of the Metro Lexington Market Station. The rail yard for service, inspection, repair and storage of rail cars for the Baltimore Metro system is located just off of the main line, near the Reisterstown Plaza Station.

The Section "A" construction started in December 1976, and the estimate for total cost was $721 million, and the projected opening date was in Fall 1982. With a final completion cost of $797 million and actual opening of the line on November 21, 1983, it can be seen that the final product came in fairly close to budget and time.

Section "B" - Owings Mills Extension

The Baltimore Metro rail car fleet was expanded for the opening of Section "B", with 28 cars ordered, so after all the cars were delivered, the original fleet of 72 cars was expanded to 100 cars. The 100-car fleet was intended to fill the needs Section "A", the Owings Mills Extension then under construction, and the then-proposed extension to Johns Hopkins Hospital. In 2001, the Metro fleet consists of 100 heavy-rail cars in 50 married pairs. [30, 31]

Section "C" - Johns Hopkins Extension

The 1.5-mile (2.4 km) extension of the Baltimore Metro from the Charles Center Station to Johns Hopkins Hospital opened in May 1995, and includes the Shot Tower/Market Place Station. The line extension and two stations are in subway, and it cost $340 million to build, funded 80% with federal transit funds and 20% from the Maryland Transportation Trust Fund. This extension runs from the Charles Center station in downtown Baltimore to the Shot Tower/Market Place area in downtown Baltimore's east side and Johns Hopkins Hospital, one of the state's largest employers. The Shot Tower/Market Place Metro station is located within walking distance of the historic Shot Tower and City Life Museum. The Johns Hopkins Metro station was built in the center of the Johns Hopkins Hospital campus with an underground walkway connecting the hospital to the south entrance of the Metro station. The northern end of the line north of the Johns Hopkins Station, was designed to be compatible with a future northeast extension of the rapid rail transit line. [31]

Station Architecture and Artwork

Baltimore Metro rapid transit stations have varied architectural designs. The Washington Metro used common station design themes, and a high vaulted arch in the subway stations. The Baltimore Metro subway stations have the more conventional box structure, but by using differing mezzanine ceiling heights, some of which are quite high, each subway station in the system has its own unique signature from an architectural standpoint. The canopies of the aerial stations also differ from station to station.

Here's an art summary of each Section "A" station -

Charles Center Station - neon tube sculpture by Stephen Antonakos of New York, $64,350.
Lexington Market Station - multicolored ceramic tile mosaic adapting ethnic designs by Patricia Alexander of Baltimore, $68,300.
State Center Station - mobile sculpture crafted by Paul Daniel of Baltimore, $39,000.
Upton Station - glass and ceramic mosaic by Romare Bearden of New York, $114,000.
Penn-North Station - abstract environmental work by E. Marc Treib of California, $48,265.
Mondawmin Station - backlit photographic montage by R. Thomas Gregory of Baltimore, $85,000.
West Cold Spring Station - abstract sandstone sculpture by Jim Sanborn of Washington, D.C., $39,000.
Rogers Avenue Station - abstract weathering steel sculpture employing machinery imagery by Gregory Moring of Baltimore, $39,000.
Reisterstown Plaza Station - "sun and neon" piece by Rockne Krebs of Washington, D.C., $39,000.

O

O

Rail Cars and Metro System Operation

The hub and nerve center of the Baltimore Metro is the Operations Control Center, which is located at Eutaw and Saratoga Streets in downtown Baltimore. Control of the operations of the Metro system and other Metro systems such as communications and traction power is maintained from this center. The Operations Control Center is located atop of the Metro Lexington Market Station. Operations of the rapid rail transit line is largely automatic, but human supervision still has an important role in ensuring system reliability and safety. In the central control room, a rail transportation supervisor monitors both rail vehicle activity on the line as well as communications with the operators on each train. The control room has modern train control panels, indicator panels, monitors, and a computer and video display terminal. A large wall-display panel has a straight-line schematic of the rail system, and small red lights are used so that the rail supervisor can track each train as it travels from station to station on the main line, and also track the movement of a train as it enters the main line from the main yard, or leaves the main line and enters the main yard. Another major panel in the central control room is the traction power panel, where a supervisor can instantly see the complete status of electrical power being supplied to the system to power the trains and stations. [15]

The rail yard for service, inspection, repair and storage of rail cars for the Baltimore Metro system is located just off of the main line, near the Reisterstown Plaza Station near the Baltimore city line.

The train control system of the Baltimore Metro is made up of three sub-systems - Protection, Operation and Supervision. The Protection sub-system is automatic and will provide a minimum of 2-minute headways (spacing between trains), and also provides overspeed protection. The Operation sub-system is semi-automatic and it directs trains to start and stop, regulates speeds, spaces trains and routes them through crossovers and switches; and the train operator person opens and closes the doors, and as an alternative the train operator can operate the train manually. The Supervision sub-system is semi-automatic and includes train dispatch, performance and routing. [15]

Initial operation of Section "A" provided service from 5:00 A.M. to 8:00 P.M., Monday through Friday, with rush hour per-direction service of a train every 8 minutes and with 10-minute spacing during other hours. Patrons gain access to the system by a farecard that is purchased from farecard vending machines located near the station entrances, where a one-way or round-trip ticket, with or without bus transfer privileges, can be purchased. Monthly pass users and ticket users use their card to electronically open a faregate so that they can gain access to the train platform, where they can wait for the next train, get on board, and then exit the train at their destination. They use the same farecard to exit the faregate to leave the system, and the fare is deducted from the card in the case of a value card. [16]

The system and its trains are powered and operated by electricity, which is supplied to the system by a series of power substations adjacent to the rail line. Traction power to the trains is supplied by a contact third rail, which is on the railroad track bed just outside of the two train running rails.

The Baltimore Metro vehicles were built in the same contract as that of the Miami, Florida rapid rail transit system. Both Miami and Baltimore cars are identical except for the paint design. The Baltimore Subway car is the Budd Universal Rapid Transit Car (BURT). It is 75 feet long, 10 feet 2.5 inches wide, 12 feet high, 3 feet 6.5 inches floor height, weighs 76,000 lbs., has 76 seats, has 275 passenger crush load, uses 700 VDC electric power, has a maximum speed of 70 MPH, with minimum horizontal radius of 250 feet, with chopper control, and air conditioning. There are 3 sets of biparting doors on each side. The cars do have train doors at each end, however passenger passing between cars is prohibited. There are air initiated, hydraulic tread brakes that are regenerative, with a dynamic brake also. The cars operate in married pairs, and there is a full width cab at one end of the car. The operator controls are on the left side (same as a bus). All Baltimore Metro stations have island platforms. Baltimore Metro operates 2, 4, and 6 car trains as needed, with station platform length limiting the maximum train length to 6 cars.

As it turned out, both the Baltimore Metro and the Miami Metrorail approached their first line opening at about the same time in late 1983. Miami had 136 rail cars on order, and Baltimore had 72 on order to be delivered first before Miami, and the whole rail car contract was behind schedule. In July 1983, Baltimore had only 32 cars delivered, and needed at least 58 cars to begin operation on Section "A". Miami needed at least 40 cars to begin operation on its first section (the whole Miami Metrorail system eventually expanded to 18 miles of route). Miami Metrorail officials approached the Budd Company and MDOT MTA and requested delivery of its first 40 cars after Baltimore had received its first 58 cars. At first, MDOT MTA refused to delay its order for 72 cars, but a compromise was worked out between officials of the two rail systems, where Baltimore would get 58 cars, then Miami would get 40 cars, and then Baltimore would get its final 14 cars, and then Miami would get the remainder of its order. Baltimore Metro opened its Section "A" with 58 cars in November 1983, Miami Metrorail opened its first section with 40 cars in December 1983, and Baltimore Metro got its final 14 cars in 1984. The key persons in resolving this whole issue in a manner which would benefit both cities, were William Lehman, Florida Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives, who then was the chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee which allocated $27 billion annually in federal transportation funds in the U.S., and Congressional colleague Steny H. Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat; and Lehman engineered an agreement with Hoyer. The deal was that Miami would get its cars and Maryland would get more than $100 million in extra federal transportation grants plus the friendship of an influential Congressman. [6, 8, 23]

Initial ridership projections while the system was being planned was that weekday ridership would be 83,000 passengers per day after Section "A" opened, increasing to 104,000 when the Section "B" Owings Mills Extension opened. [3] Actual ridership in November 1984 was 38,000. [29] Ridership in 2001 is about 55,000. [31]

In the article "A Unique City-State Relationship", Mass Transit magazine, September 1983, by Frederic B. Hill, is a good description of the Maryland Department of Transportation as was structured in 1983. Much of the same basic structure is still in place today in 2001. Maryland is one of the smallest states in the country in land area, rank number 42, while still having substantial population, now over 5 million residents. A number of unusual features, including its geographical location, have contributed to a transportation organization that is rare in the United States. All public transportation activities are extraordinarily centralized, in a manner that fits the demographic and geographical factors of the state of Maryland. About 90% of the state's population is concentrated in the Baltimore area and in the Washington, D.C. suburbs, and the two areas now conjoin and are considered by the U.S. Census Bureau as a consolidated metropolitan statistical area, the Baltimore-Washington area, with 7.6 million population in the 2000 Census (2.5 million in the Baltimore area, 5.1 million in the Washington area). There are no other large cities in Maryland, and there are large rural areas with a collection of small towns and small cities, including regional areas called Western Maryland, Southern Maryland and the Maryland Eastern Shore. Various small cities and towns in Maryland have public transit also, but the high-capacity systems for rail and bus mass transit in Maryland are concentrated in the Baltimore-Washington area. [7]

WMATA's political structure reflects the interstate nature of bus and rail transit in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. MDOT MTA administers the bus and rail systems in the Baltimore metropolitan area, and the whole MARC commuter rail (local passenger trains operating on a mainline railroad) system, which serves both areas. Maryland was the first state to have a full-fledged transportation trust fund, where all transportation tax and fee revenues, including bus and rail fares, are deposited. The MDOT Consolidated Transportation Program (CTP) is the annually-updated TIP (common acronym for transportation improvement program) where transportation trust funds are programmed for allocation over a 5-year period. Only highway toll facilities have their own separate fund, due to a more direct link to state toll revenue bonds.

All funds dedicated to the Department are deposited in the Trust Fund and disbursements for all programs and projects are made from the Trust Fund. Revenues are not earmarked for specific programs; the allocation of funds to projects and programs is made in conjunction with state and local elected officials. Sources of funds include motor fuel taxes, motor vehicle excise (titling) taxes, motor vehicle fees (registrations, licenses and other fees), and federal-aid. In addition, the Trust Fund also includes corporate income taxes, operating revenues (e.g., transit fares, port fees, airport fees), and bond proceeds. Federal-aid projections are based on current appropriations and the match required to meet capital program cashflow requirements. Bonds are issued to support the cashflow requirements of the planned capital program while maintaining debt coverage requirements.

Certain Trust Fund revenues are shared with other state agencies and local governments based on statutory requirements. The funds in the Gasoline and Motor Vehicle Revenue Account are distributed 70 percent to MDOT, 15 percent to Baltimore City, and 15 percent to the counties and municipalities based on motor vehicle registrations and road miles. Deductions are also made for certain General Fund purposes, including environmental, fuel tax collection, and state police programs. After the state agency and local government deductions, the remaining funds are allocated for debt service, MDOT operating expenditures, and MDOT capital expenditures. MDOT expenditures are for various modes of transportation: State Highway Administration (SHA), Maryland Transit Administration (MTA and MARC), Washington Area Transit Programs (WMAT), Maryland Port Administration (MPA), Maryland Aviation Administration (MAA), and Motor Vehicle Administration (MVA and ISC).

The Transportation Trust Fund permits the State tremendous flexibility to meet the needs of a diverse transportation system. Although Maryland was one of the first states to have an integrated trust fund, it is a model copied by other states. By working closely with the rating agencies and maintaining financially prudent criteria regarding the Trust Fund, the Department has one of the highest credit ratings given to transportation agencies.

Sources

Copyright © 1997-2002 by Scott Kozel. All rights reserved. Reproduction, reuse, or distribution without permission is prohibited.

(Created 10-30-1997, expanded 10-23-2001, updated 10-13-2002)