Ehrlich Cans Gridlock Panel

By Kenneth C. Rossignol
ST. MARY’S TODAY

ANNAPOLIS (May 24, 2005) --- Gov. Robert Ehrlich (R.) last week vetoed a bill calling for a blue-ribbon transportation study panel which won tremendous support from both the Senate and the House of Delegates in the recent session of the General Assembly.
Ehrlich’s veto is likely to be overridden by the General Assembly as one of it’s first orders of business when it reconvenes.
Ehrlich issued a statement claiming that the functions of the region’s transportation analysis and possible solutions to the severe problems are already being undertaken by at least a half dozen groups.
The bill was co-sponsored by Senators Mac Middleton (D. Charles), Roy Dyson (D. Charles, St. Mary’s, Calvert) and Mike Miller (D. Prince George’s, Calvert).
While the bill passed both the Senate and the House by easy margins, Del. Anthony O’Donnell (R. Lusby) tried several backdoor sneak attacks on the bill in sinister attempts to derail the bill, all because the GOP supports only highways for moving traffic and is opposed to rail transportation.
The Republicans, led by Dept. of Transportation Secretary Robert Flanagan, even concocted a scheme to have a Western Maryland Delegate propose side-tracking amendments to the bill when it was pending in the House and when that tactic failed, they attempted to cause Prince George’s Delegates to fear that commuter rail would somehow disturb their county.
Both of the tactics failed and O’Donnell, in a spot, fearing voter backlash if he voted against the bill, voted for it after spending great amounts of time trying to defeat it in the backroom.
Delegate Johnny Wood (D. Mechanicsville) gave a strong defense to the need for the 21-member panel to undertake a comprehensive study of the quagmire which has enveloped all major state roads in Calvert, Charles and St. Mary’s as it has become the state’s fastest growing region.
In Calvert County, the Board of Commissioners have capped development and decided to put an end to the growth rate which has nearly tripled the population of the county in the last 15 years.
St. Mary’s Commissioner President Tommy McKay (R. Hollywood), when he was first elected, told ST. MARY’S TODAY that he would support bringing commuter rail to Southern Maryland but after his orientation sessions with Republicans in Annapolis was soon calling into question the affordability of building commuter rail.
The GOP has been attempting to bludgeon Amtrak funding but fails to mention that tax funds built our highways, airports and provide infrastructure for both in the form of parking garages, ramps, parking lots, shuttle buses, airport terminals, air traffic control systems and airport security.
Commuter rail is in place all directions around the Washington area except for Southern Maryland. Commuter rail, owned by the State of Maryland, serves Baltimore from both the north and the south and the State operates light rail systems in Baltimore.
Maryland owns and operates the MARC trains on several lines, and contracts with Amtrak and CSX to operate over their railroad lines, which reach all through central Maryland to Baltimore and beyond and through Montgomery and Frederick Counties, even providing service to Martinsburg, West Virginia.
Virginia Rail Express operates trains on lines from Fredericksburg and Manassas. A railroad extended to Mechanicsville for nearly 100 years and in 1943 the U.S. Navy bought the line and completed it to the Patuxent River Naval Air Station where it operated until the last trains ran in 1958. The federal government gave the railroad right of way to the St. Mary’s County Commissioners who have spent the last 30 years doling out endless easements to cross the line to developers. Senator Dyson has been pushing the county towards reestablishing commuter rail and in 1998 was successful in convincing the General Assembly to pass a bill to establish a feasibility study for preserving the rail line for commuter rail to Lexington Park. The study was conducted by the State Dept. of Transportation and reported that immediate steps should be taken to save the rail line from further intrusions and save it for eventual construction of a new rail line.
A commuter rail line built on the old railroad right of way, which is 95 percent intact (a portion of the right-of-way has been used by the State Highway Administration for construction of Rt. 235) could connect to the existing CSX tracks which lead from Aquasco and Morgantown and end at Bowie where the main line for Amtrak operates as well as MARC commuter trains.
From that point, passengers could connect to Washington or Baltimore as well as travel to distant points by rail or to the BWI airport train station and connect to flights.