MTA’s missed deadline could derail Red Line

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235 days ago: Mayor appoints Red Line coordinator

Paperwork snafus could cost the state $1.3 billion in funds slated for the proposed Red Line transit system. – Chris Ammann/Examiner

BALTIMORE (Map, News) - Bureaucratic snafus have cost the state $3 million slated for preliminary design of the proposed Red Line rapid transit, the Maryland Transit Administration acknowledged Tuesday.

And the MTA’s failure to meet the deadline to file a detailed progress report could jeopardize $1.2 billion in federal transportation funds for the Red Line, sources said.

State transit officials were alerted to the paperwork lapse last week in a phone call from the Federal Transit Administration, the sources said. The deadline passed Dec. 31, 2007, and the MTA has yet to file the report.

The report, to focus on alternatives to the Red Line route, is required as part of the request for federal funds for alternatives to the proposed line, which would run from Security Square Mall in Woodlawn to Johns Hopkins Bayview Campus. Transit advocates harshly criticized the MTA, arguing the failure to keep the project on track did not bode well for the future of the Red Line as it competes with dozens of projects across the country for increasingly scarce federal transit dollars.

“There was no explanation for why the MTA did not submit a resolution to start the process,” said Ed Cohen, president of the Transit Riders Action Council. “They just didn’t do it.

“This funding is important because it has to do with the planning process and money for the planning,” he said. “If they didn’t file on time, it could cause everything to be on hold.”

Henry Clay, an MTA spokesman, blamed delays in the Red Line design for the missed deadline.

“The project was not where the FTA said it should be to qualify for the funding,” Clay said. “We’re not far enough along the process, but we will be working to get the funds reauthorized.”

The $3 million earmark, approved in 2005 as part of a federal transportation measure, gave the MTA three years to comply with the paperwork requirements.

Final funding for the Red Line Project would come from a federal program called New Starts. The program, started by the Bush administration, has financed more than $9 billion worth of transit projects in 22 cities since 2001, the FTA says.

Melissa Schwartz, a spokeswoman for Sen. Barbara Mikulski, said the senator, who helped get federal planning money for the Red Line, hoped to devise a strategy to have the $3 million restored.

 “We are working with the Maryland Department of Transportation to resolve this issue,” Schwartz said.

But some MTA officials said privately that the FTA no longer considers costs associated with the preliminary design of mass transit systems as eligible for funding. That, sources said, could make it that much harder to restore the lost funding.

The Red Line has been a top priority for Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon, who in February appointed a former Federal Highway Administration planner, Danyell Diggs, as Red Line coordinator.

Diggs did not return a reporter’s phone calls.

Dixon recently attended a Red Line summit to hear concerns among residents of the more than 40 communities that would be affected by the proposed line.

Cohen, who has criticized the Red Line route, said the delay in funding may give more traction to an alternative he prefers: a line that would use some existing rail lines, right of ways and tunnels on a route from Security Square to the Johns Hopkins University Homewood Campus.

“In a way, this [missed deadline] creates an opportunity to step back,” he said. “We’ve been going forward with blinders on. This will provide that window of opportunity to straighten things out.”

sjanis@baltimoreexaminer.com

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118 days ago: Senator seeks answers for lost Red Line funding

» 131 days ago: MTA’s missed deadline could derail Red Line «

224 days ago: State officials deem Red Line alternative too costly

235 days ago: Mayor appoints Red Line coordinator