Many of the O?Malley transition reports highlight the need for more staff or funds, but the one on transportation emphasizes that “the inadequacy of funding” is the “single issue that dominates the discussion.”
The need for more money for roads and mass transit has remained the subject of commissions and studies for more than a decade. The gasoline tax was last raised in 1994.
In 2004, the General Assembly passed a package of fee increases on vehicles, but that was a stopgap measure. Gov. Robert Ehrlich refused to consider raising the gasoline tax, but that?s what O?Malley?s transition team, co-chaired by the heads of two business groups, the Greater Baltimore Committee and the Greater Washington Board of Trade, recommended.
But even a 5 cents-per-gallon increase won’t suffice, the report says. The panel suggests indexing the gas tax to inflation and raising the sales tax by a penny to 6 percent, with most of the new revenue going to transportation.
In a recommendation that may take many county governments by surprise, the transportation work group suggests handing over maintenance of some smaller state highways to local governments, since they “can better maintain certain types of roads.”
In Baltimore City, which maintains all the roads within city limits, the panel recommends that the state take over maintenance of the Jones Falls Expressway (I-83) and the Baltimore-Washington Parkway (MD 295) “to achieve timely maintenance and capital replacement.”
But other issues face the huge transportation department, which also manages two airports, the port of Baltimore and the Motor Vehicle Administration.
Those agencies cover almost all their operating costs with fees, and the airports actually throw some dollars back into the state kitty.
For the Motor Vehicle Administration, the report says “the most daunting challenge” is the new federal requirements for the Real ID program, making state driver?s licenses meet federal standards with an unknown price tag.
“This unfunded mandate will place a significant strain on MVA?s current staffing, technology, and infrastructure,” the report says.
The transition work group also worried that salary structure in the transportation agencies can?t keep pace with the private sector, and that many of the senior staff are near retirement.
Low morale at the Mass Transit Administration concerned the transportation work group, and it recommended an evaluation of the leadership of the agency. Transportation Secretary John Porcari apparently has acted on this recommendation by replacing the head of the MTA last week.
The report also recommends that the aviation administration conduct regular customer satisfaction surveys at the airports, with a target rate of 80 percent in overall satisfaction. They also suggest spending $2 million more on marketing the airport and its services.
Another recommendation is that the port work on improving freight rail access to it by increasing tunnel heights to the Midwest to allow double-deck freight cars, a move already under way from the ports in Virginia.
