A Maryland Transit Administration light rail car stops in downtown Baltimore in this photo from 2019. Photo from Wikimedia Commons.
Last summer, Gov. Wes Moore (D) made the bold decision to revive the Baltimore Red Line project. Serious questions remain, including which transit mode to pursue, how to pass through downtown, East Baltimore and approach Bayview.
Answering these questions will largely depend on costs. Aside from whatever the state and local partners can ultimately contribute, access to federal funding is key to completing this project.
Opponents of the project have already begun to ramp up attacks on the project’s potential high price tag. However, I think it is important to note that this isn’t 2014. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill has unlocked multiple pathways of federal funding. If these federal funding sources are leveraged together, total state and local costs can be kept to just over $1 billion, substantially reducing the state’s burden of the cost share.
While much of the discussion has focused on the Federal Transit Administration’s Capital Investment Grant (CIG) program, there are two other Department of Transportation grant programs that this project may be eligible for: the Neighborhood Access and Equity Grant Program (NAE), and the Mega Grant Program.
Established as a part of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), NAE will provide over $3 billion in competitive grants to connect communities separated by transportation infrastructure, with roughly a third of funding set aside for projects in low-income communities. This grant program is similar to the Reconnecting Communities Grant pilot program, for which the city of Baltimore has already received funding.
Enacted as a part of BIL, the purpose of the Mega Grant program is to invest in infrastructure projects of national or regional significance. BIL makes available up to $5 billion for the Mega program for fiscal years 2022 through 2026. The only question is whether the Red Line would be considered an eligible project.
Eligible projects include a highway or bridge project on the National Multimodal Freight Network; a highway or bridge project on the National Highway Freight Network; a highway or bridge project on the National Highway System; a freight intermodal (including public ports) or freight rail project that provides public benefit; a railway highway grade separation or elimination project; an intercity passenger rail project; a public transportation project that is eligible under assistance under Chapter 53 of title 49 U.S.C. and is a part of any of the project types described above; or a grouping, combination, or program of interrelated, connected or dependent projects of any of the projects described above.
The Baltimore Red Line meets project eligibility for Mega as a core focus of the project is to create better utility of the stretch of U.S. Route 40 within Baltimore City, by way of a grade-separated light rail in the median and further connectivity to the rest of the city and Baltimore County. Moreover, the BIL specifies that the U.S. Transportation secretary consider, as an additional consideration for the Mega program, whether a project may benefit an Area of Persistent Poverty or a Historically Disadvantaged Community. Baltimore City meets the current DOT criteria of an Area of Persistent Poverty.
If leveraged together, these grants have the potential of maximizing the federal cost-share of this project to 80%, substantially reducing the cost burden for the state and ensuring that the project can be fully realized as initially envisioned. For example, assuming the highball cost estimate of $7.2 billion, the state and local partners would only be on the hook for $1.2 billion, with the federal government covering the rest, which is more than manageable.
Given the amount of federal resources available, the time is now to complete the Red Line.
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