Residents Fear Connector Will Consume All Highway Funds

In some of the rural areas of the state that are rapidly transforming into bedroom communities, many lawmakers say that suburban counties near Washington and Baltimore are getting more than their fair share of the state's transportation funding.

"Sometimes you get the feeling that if we ask for a couple million dollars, it's like asking for the sky," said House Minority Leader George C. Edwards (R-Garrett), who said his Western Maryland district is slated to get its first major transportation project in 30 years.

Sen. Roy P. Dyson (D-St. Mary's) said even outer-rim Washington suburbs -- such as his district in Southern Maryland -- don't receive enough traffic improvements because inner counties use up the funding. A bill to fund a study of mass transit in Southern Maryland that he sponsored was vetoed by Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R). A project to improve the aging Thomas Johnson Bridge, the only link between Calvert and St. Mary's counties, remains on the list of unfunded long-term plans.

As he glanced at headlines that described hours-long tie-ups on the region's roads, Dyson said it often felt as if such rapidly developing areas as Southern Maryland were being forgotten.

"It seems to me they're taking care of the metro areas at the expense of the rural areas," he said.

Ronald Walters, a professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland, said it makes political sense for Ehrlich to focus on transportation projects in the close-in suburbs of Washington. Ehrlich has strong support among the more conservative rural parts of the state, but he needs to court liberal voters in Montgomery and Prince George's, Walters said.

"If he could toss them a bone like the ICC, it certainly may pay him some political dividends," Walters said.

Senate Minority Leader J. Lowell Stoltzfus (R-Somerset) said politics has nothing to do with the governor's support for the connector. It needs to be built because it is the most pressing transportation priority in the state, he said, even if it draws potential funding from other projects in the state.

"There is no question that it does stretch us and that it does give us less opportunity in some of the areas in the state," he said. "But it's imperative that we do it."

Stoltzfus said he will be watching closely to make sure an important project in his Eastern Shore district -- the widening of Route 13 -- continues moving forward without significant delay.

"We understand it's going to take some time," he said. "Would I like to have it done next year? You bet I would. But I understand that with limited funds . . . you can't get everything you want right now."

Some Democrats blame Ehrlich for the delays, saying the governor has not committed adequate money for the state's strained transportation system, while Republicans say such criticism is just "an attempt to bad-mouth the governor."

None of that matters much to Smith as he navigates up and down Route 4, the only major thoroughfare in Calvert County, which can seem more like a parking lot than a road during rush hour. Sometimes he thinks things are so bad that the state will never be able to fix Southern Maryland's transportation woes.

"I think we're down here by ourselves," he said with a sigh.