State to get cash for new light rail cars
$215M from feds will allow replacement of all 52 train cars in Baltimore region
Federal officials will front more than $213 million for Maryland to replace its aging fleet of light rail vehicles, months after both a shutdown of the system for repairs and proposed cuts to state transportation spending.
The Baltimore area’s federal delegation said Tuesday that the Federal Transit Administration funding to invigorate the state’s efforts to replace all of its 52 light rail vehicles is coming from a new rail upkeep program set up by one of President Joe Biden’s administration’s key legislative victories, the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law.
“Maryland’s light rail service helps keep Baltimore area residents and the local economy on the move — which is why we need to keep it in top shape,” U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen said in a Tuesday statement, touting the all-Democratic delegation’s efforts to pass the law during Biden’s first year in office.
The law set aside $1.5 billion for rail vehicle replacement projects, and about half of that amount has been invested to date, according to a news release from the senator’s office.
The state will match the federal influx of cash with $90 million of its own funds going to the light rail replacement, also allocating $127.6 million in federal formula funds to the project, the release says.
All of the Maryland Transit Administration’s aging fleet, which includes 95-foot rail cars dating back to when the light rail line opened in 1992, has reached the end of their useful life or will be there within five years, the agency said on Tuesday. The $450 million project aims to replace them with “modern, low-floor vehicles” that will allow for “easier, more accessible boarding.”
Shortly after Tuesday’s announcement, a transit equity group rallied at McKeldin Square demanding that the MTA’s revived proposal for a new eastwest transit line, called the Red Line, is served by light rail. The Baltimore Transit Equity Coalition, which had planned the protest in advance, was born out of former Gov. Larry Hogan’s decision to cancel the $2.9 billion project in 2015.
It has not been decided whether the latest incarnation of the Red Line, revived by Moore’s administration, will be served by bus or train.
In the news release, U.S. Rep. Kweisi Mfume called the light rail system, which runs through Baltimore from northern Anne Arundel County in the south to
Hunt Valley in the north, a “critical means of transportation” that has existed for decades, noting that an overhaul of the fleet was “long overdue.” His fellow Democrat in Congress, Rep. John Sarbanes, called out the “aging fleet’s frequent service disruptions,” which he said made it difficult for residents to move around safely and efficiently.
Doubts of the reliability of the aging light rail fleet, which includes some equipment that is over 30 years old, came to a head in December when Maryland transportation officials shut down the system for more than two weeks for inspections and repairs stemming from broken hardware. A fire in October and repeated “smoke events” revealed that high-voltage conduits throughout the light rail had been punctured, officials said. Inspections amid the shutdown found conduit damage on 28 of the vehicles. At the time of the closure, the light rail fleet had already been undergoing a $160 million overhaul.
Although not directly related, the December shutdown began just a few days after Gov. Wes Moore said his cabinet was going to make about $3.3 billion in cuts to planned spending over the next six year across the state’s transportation-related agencies to address a hole in funding.
A plan submitted by the Maryland Department of Transportation said a number of the “state of good repair” projects associated with the light rail would be delayed, with a total of about $78 million of capital reductions to spending on the system alone. Those infrastructure upkeep projects were restored, though, as part of about $150 million that Moore ultimately reinstated from the proposed cuts when the Democratic governor submitted his budget last month.
In a Tuesday statement, Moore said the funding influx would help ensure the fleet is “safe and operational for decades to come,” calling reliable transit in the Baltimore area “essential to connecting Marylanders with life’s opportunities and spurring economic growth.”