LEONARDTOWN, Md. – On Tuesday, September 24, the St. Mary’s County Board of Commissioners and Delegates Todd Morgan and Matt Morgan met with MDOT officials to discuss transportation projects in St. Mary’s County. State officials summarized the draft of the Maryland Consolidated Transportation Program (CTP) for fiscal years 2025-2030 at this annual meeting.
Paul Wiedefeld, the Maryland Secretary of Transportation, opened by updating the Commissioners about a request they had previously made about storm drains on MD Route 5 in front of MedStar Hospital in Leonardtown, reporting the issue had been investigated and resolved.
“I will keep my opening remarks very brief,” Wiedefeld said, “focusing on the update of the department’s finances, since it drives the investment levels of projects and services in St. Mary’s County and throughout the state.” Wiedefeld explained that last year’s CTP required a $3.3 billion reduction between the operating and capital budgets. Because of additional support from the state’s rainy day fund and additional revenue from the General Assembly, MDOT was able to partially close the gap between available funds and operational costs.
“Even with these increases in funding,” Wiedefeld said, “significant steps were taken to balance the budget. For example, the department took an 8% operating cut for all of our modes of transportation, and also we had to stop any project that was not under construction, in a construction program, from moving forward and defer it until we had additional revenues.”
The new CTP is drafted with significant budgetary constraints. These include slow economic growth in Maryland, rising costs for labor and materials, and revenue from sources like the motor fuel tax being lower than estimated, Wiedefeld said. MDOT is focusing its limited resources on safety and continued operation of existing infrastructure.
William Pines, Administrator of the State Highway Adminstration (SHA), was next to present.
“At SHA, we understand the fiscal challenges Maryland is facing,” Pines said, “however I want to assure you of two things. First, SHA will continue to do big things– moving forward multimodal projects that focus on safety, accessibility, mobility, and equity. Second, safety will always be our top priority. This means building and maintaining a system that supports pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists, and all users, as the secretary said, including our highway workers.”
Among projects moving forward were those in the Pedestrian Safety Action Plan (PSAP.) The PSAP includes a number of safety improvements along Three Notch Road between Chancellors Run Road and Great Mills Road. That project is already in the preliminary design and planning phase, with construction dates to be determined. SHA will hold a public informational workshop about this project sometime this winter to share information with the people of St. Mary’s county and receive public input.
Pines highlighted projects underway or recently completed in St. Mary’s, including improvements at Abell Street and Moakley Street in Leonardtown, a bridge replacement along Point Lookout Road over Hilton Run, and the Three Notch Trail shared use path.
Melissa Williams, Director of Planning and Program Development at the Maryland Transportation Authority (MDTA) spoke briefly about the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore and the aftermath. State officials would continue working with federal partners to gain 100% federal funding for the reconstruction of the Key Bridge, Williams said.
Delegate Todd Morgan (R) interjected to ask what MDOT would do if they could not secure 100% funding from the federal government. Wiedefeld assured the Delegate that he was confident that the funding would be granted, but any remainder would be collected from the toll authority.
Delegate Matt Morgan (R) added that earlier that day the Maryland Attorney General’s office had announced its lawsuit against Grace Ocean Private Limited and Synergy Marine Pte Ltd., the owners and managers respectively of the M/V Dali, the ship that collided with and collapsed the Francis Scott Key Bridge on March 26, 2024. If this lawsuit is successful, the state could be awarded over $1.7 billion in damages.
During presentations about the impact of regional airports, Director Ashish Solanki of the Maryland Aviation Administration said that local airports provide over 10,000 jobs and $1.4 billion in economic activity. St. Mary’s County Regional Airport accounts for over 900 of those jobs and $108 million.
“How much money does BWI contribute to the Transportation Trust Fund annually?” Todd Morgan asked Solanki and Wiedefeld. The State’s Transportation Trust Fund is a government account that supports MDOT investments, according to the draft CTP. This fund aggregates revenue that the state government can allocate to projects like safety improvements, road maintenance, transit options, congestion relief, as well as “maintaining the competitiveness of Maryland’s Port of Baltimore and BWI Marshall Airport,” according to the CTP.
Solanki and Wiedefeld confirmed with each other that neither knew exactly how much BWI contributed to the Trust off the top of their heads. “In general,” Wiedefeld said, “they cover all their operating costs and a good portion of their capital program. It does vary, the capital, based on the influx of projects they get. As you may recall, the way that model works on the air side it’s 100% recoverable for the airlines, on the terminal it’s roughly 60% recoverable from the airlines, and the land side is all on the aviation administration.”
Todd Morgan explained that the reason he asked was that the rise in electric vehicles and increase in fuel efficiency for conventional engines had resulted in decreased gas tax revenue that would usually be allocated for road maintenance without decreasing need for that maintenance.
Wiedefeld answered that by federal law, any revenue generated at BWI would be reinvested at BWI. In addition, MDOT had taken on the 8% cut to operations to ensure there were funds available for safety and maintenance projects. Wiedefeld also said that under state law, MDOT is required to recover 100% of the fees collected at the MVA and other MDOT services. This number had dropped to around 80% in 2023, but the department was raising prices and fees to return to 100% recovery and free up funds for other operations.
At the close of MDOT presentations, Wiedefeld returned to the Port of Baltimore and the Key Bridge collapse. “The port is rebounding very strongly since the reopening,” Wiedefeld said. “The number of ships and trucks coming and going are basically back to where they were, but the cargo volume is not. Part of that is obviously because we lost two months of activity there. The cruise ship business has come back, so that’s a really good sign for us. We have a very good reputation in the business, to be frank, of how we handle our customers, and that was really underlined during the shutdown of the Port of Baltimore. It’s a great step forward, but we still have a long way to go.”
After the MDOT officials finished presenting, the commissioners and delegates asked questions and shared comments with Wiedefeld and Pines.
Commissioner Scott Ostrow asked about the Thomas Johnson Bridge, which he had asked MDOT about last year at the same meeting.
“In my opinion, that bridge is extremely important,” Ostrow said. “It’s a vital corridor, it is a matter of national security between the Calvert nuclear facility and PAX River Naval base here, and that bridge has passed its lifespan. And also it’s very concerning to me that because of the way that bridge is, we lose a lot of people to suicide off that bridge. So those are some very big concerns for me, and I would really like to know where we are on getting that bridge replaced.”
“I think some good news is we are making traction with the path forward,” Pines said. He described the process where SHA had worked with federal organizations and state matching programs to gain $1 million each from the federal and Maryland state governments for the Thomas Johnson Bridge.
“We’ve been working with our federal partners on that million dollar earmark. We go through an approval process, it’s kind of minutiae for most people, but typically when we don’t have full funding for the project, they want to make sure that we’re allocating it to activities that will be fruitful for the long term, even if the rest of the funding isn’t near term. So we now have their approval on those activities, we’re starting in the spring of 2025 to work on geo-technical activities, bathymetric survey, and looking into the Coast Guard height issue. I know we talked about that last year. We had made some progress though getting vendors in place to help support us on some of those activitites. We’re making headway. I know it feels like a long time, but we are over the hurdle with our federal partners to have a path to be able to move forward.”
“What is the plan forward?” Ostrow said. “Because obviously the bridge replacement will be substantial and it’s very important, at least for this commissioner, for it not be a toll bridge.”
“That would be part of a larger discussion of the overall finances for the department,” Wiedefeld said. “As you can imagine that project will be several—”
“Monumental, let’s say,” Pines said. “That Nice-Middleton Bridge, for example, $636 million bridge in Southern Maryland. Today’s costs north of that– I don’t want to speculate, but it’s a big project for sure.”
“It’ll have to be included in any future revenue stream,” Wiedefeld said.
“I’ll bug you again offline line like I usually do,” Ostrow said.
Commissioner Eric Colvin asked about the commuter bus lots. Colvin said that he understood the reduction in the number of lots due to budgetary constraints, but that the southernmost lot in St. Mary’s, at Hollywood Volunteer Fire Department, needed to remain in operation. Without that lot, he argued, commuters would be more inclined to simply drive to their destinations rather than stop at another commuter lot.
George Clark, the Transportation Demand Management Specialist for St. Mary’s, Charles, and Calvert counties and member of the Tri-County Council of Southern Maryland, approached from the audience to speak about Colvin’s concerns.
“I have been in contact with Derrick Lennon, who is the MTA Commuter Bus Director,” Clark said, “and they’re looking at eliminating all park-and-ride lots that are not county or state owned when the leases come up. I found this out a few months ago. We lost two already in Charles County. Right now St. Mary’s Hollywood’s on the block.”
Clark went on to say that he had convinced Lennon to give the Hollywood lot a six month extension, which would end in January or February 2025, and the state would notify the commissioners 60 days before the lease was due for renewal or termination. Clark also seconded Colvin’s concern that the Hollywood lot was critical link in the chain of commuter services.
Colvin also asked about the quality of resurfacing work done on St. Mary’s roads.
“I have had– and I assume the other commissioners have had– numerous inquiries about the status of road resurfacing by the state,” Colvin said. “It does not seem to be the same quality that it used to be. It’s a lot more patchwork, it’s not as smooth anymore, and so that’s just been brought to my attention and I wanted to share that concern with you all.”
“We have made strategic reductions within our system preservation program, including paving,” Pines said. “We have expert geo-technical engineers, pavement engineers, that look at the conditions there. We use an asset management approach to try and extend the life of that pavement as long as possible, but certainly patching, sealing, those types of activities are being utilized to try and extend the life. The road surface is not always as clean when you do those types of activities, but it does prevent premature replacement of the pavement.”
Wiedefeld added that MDOT had both incentives and disincentives to ensure contractors met the standards of their contracts.
“We’ve got to make sure they’re performing to the degree that we’re paying them,” Weidefeld said.
Matt Morgan voiced concerns that motorists in St. Mary’s shouldered the financial burden of urban transit.
“Your initial comments on the Transportation Trust fund painted a dreary picture,” Matt Morgan said. “I’ve gotten a lot of feedback on some of the laws and tax increases that the General Assembly passed last year dealing with car registrations.”
Matt Morgan went on to ask about the Purple Line, a 16-mile long light rail line serving Prince George’s and Montgomery counties. He also asked if MDOT planned to use fare box recovery to recoup the construction and operation costs of the Purple Line from Purple Line riders.
Wiedefeld replied that the high cost was in part due to a switch in contractors earlier in the project. In addition, utility issues and bedrock present at construction sites posed challenges for the MTA, who had to resolve them before turning over operations to the contractor. Wiedefeld also said he meets weekly with that contractor and expects the Purple Line to begin running in late 2027.
“Citizens subsidize 92% of the operating cost for light rail,” Matt Morgan said, “and they’re paying 100% of the costs for their commute and their vehicles. I do believe that scale is a little bit off.”
Todd Morgan asked Wiedefeld and Pines about improvements to be made on Route 5 Indian Bridge Road and Great Mills Road. The delegate said the project had been discussed for about 15 years, but funding had dropped to $0 in the 2025-2030 CTP.
Pines said that the project would finish its design phase, including surveys and studies of the terrain, and be ready to begin construction as soon funding was available.
Wiedefeld said that the CTP being discussed was only a draft, and that his staff would add projects back to the final CTP if funding could be allocated for them. These funds would probably come from federal coffers, especially for safety-oriented projects, Wiedefeld said.
“There’s a tremendous emphasis now on mass transit in the urban areas,” Todd Morgan said, “and as Delegate [Matt] Morgan points out, the fare box recovery system is such that the taxpayers are paying 90% of the bill. And then the rurals are sitting out there going ‘what do we get?’ Commissioner Ostrow has talked about the bridge, and we’ve been talking about the bridge for 20 years, and some of the studies that, Administrator, you’re looking at now might have been done years ago when we analyzed alternatives to the bridge, the depth of the bridge, the height of the bridge, etc. etc. I hope we’re not going back through the same rounds of things that have been studied 15 years ago, long before your administration came in.”
“No,” Pines said, “I talked about that a bit with the federal highway side. They want to make sure we’re using their funds fruitfully. So the geo-technical information, that’s like what’s buried in the ground, so that’s not changing. That’ll be fruitful regardless of when the project moves forward. Bathymetric survey that provides essentially the topography underwater, allows you to know how the river is set up and will let you lay out pier locations and do some basic groundwork on where a bridge should be–”
“Did you say that’s never been done before?” Todd Morgan said.
“The bathymetric survey was probably done for a scour analysis, to a limited degree,” Pines said. “This’ll be a much more extensive underwater survey.”
“That stays consistent, but what keeps changing is the politics,” Matt Morgan said. “Prior to 2018 on the fare box recovery ratio, riders of mass transit paid 35% of what the operating cost is. Now they pay eight. The politics of it has changed. They got rid of those caps and now the Transportation Trust Fund seems to be struggling. The problem I think we have in the rural areas is that the balancing of that budget is constantly done on the backs of motorists. I don’t know if I can relay just how disappointing that is if you represent a rural area.”
Wiedefeld replied that as part of emergency conditions due to COVID, major metro systems didn’t collect fares. This set a culture where riders were now reluctant to pay and committed fare evasion. The emergency and the following fare evasion resulted in lower revenue for MDOT from metro transit, according to Wiedefeld.
Commissioner Michael Hewitt presented a number of projects he called “low hanging fruit,” which prioritized safety and congestion relief and were more affordable than other MDOT projects like the Purple Line or replacement of the Thomas Johnson Bridge.
“The first one would be elevating Route 249 on St. George’s Island,” Hewitt said. “What we have down there at a critical point is the wave action goes over the road, and on the recent tides you may be familiar with, from the last couple of days, that road’s been underwater. We have 200 families down there who can be cut off from any types of services. We’ve talked about elevating that roadway and also doing a revetment. Again it’s not a cheap project, but when you’re talking about bridges and you’re talking about Purple Lines, it is cheap and it has a big impact on safety for people.”
Hewitt also suggested adding a right turn lane from Route 4 onto FDR Boulevard and expanding Route 4 to four lanes from Patuxent Boulevard to the Thomas Johnson Bridge.
“The money’s not there,” Hewitt said. “I don’t want to raise taxes. Do I want to find better ways to do this? Obviously. But my magic ball is broken.”
Pines interjected that there was already some work being done on St. George’s Island.
“This fall we are planning to extend about 75 feet of rip rap to help armor that better,” Pines said. “We went through a competitive process to utilize PROTECT funding to be able to install living shoreline and some other improvements there. Design is beginning on that process now. We’re not fully funded to do everything that would need to be done there, but we are making investments to make improvements on St. George’s.”
Rip rap is stone or other material placed to prevent erosion. The US Department of Transportation offered the Promoting Resilient Operations for Transformative, Efficient and Cost-saving Transportation (PROTECT) grant in 2023. This grant program “provides funding to ensure surface transportation resilience to natural hazards including climate change, sea level rise, flooding, extreme weather events, and other natural disasters through support of planning activities, resilience improvements, community resilience and evacuation routes, and at-risk coastal infrastructure,” according to the USDOT website.
A living shoreline is a softer, green alternative to structures like revetments or bulkheads. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), living shorelines can prevent flooding like revetments and rip rap, but provide other benefits like carbon sequestration and habitat for sea life. According to NOAA, living shorelines tend to be better at absorbing wave energy and are more resilient to hurricane force winds than hard shoreline structures.
Todd Morgan voiced displeasure with the living shoreline and skepticism that it would survive the next big storm. Pines reiterated that other drainage and roadway improvements were also being designed to protect Route 249.
On Friday, September 27, Matt Morgan published a Facebook post recapping this meeting.
“On Tuesday, I met with our County Commissioners and State Highway Administration (SHA) representatives to discuss local bridge and transportation projects in St. Mary’s County,” the post reads. “I was disappointed to discover that despite raising taxes this recent legislative session, $453 million, mostly on increasing car registration fees, much-needed local traffic projects like Rt. 5 and Great Mills Rd still faced cuts. The pay more and receive less seems to be a theme with the government.”
The post also included a picture of page SHA-SM-3 of the draft CTP with the $0 alloted for spending between 2026 and 2030 circled. Readers can examine the CTP for themselves at https://mdot.maryland.gov/OPCP/CTP_2025/FY25_FY30_CTP_Full_Report_Regular_Resolution_for_viewing.pdf and watch the entire meeting between MDOT and St. Mary’s Delegates and Commissioners on the St. Mary’s County Government YouTube page at https://www.youtube.com/live/DGdN1e-5L7g?t=2303s.
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