Dulles Rail Extension Spurs Md. to Action
By Amit R. Paley
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 10, 2006
As Virginia moves closer to extending Metrorail to Dulles International Airport, Maryland officials are ramping up plans and support for their own multibillion-dollar extension to Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport.
The General Assembly late last month approved a $1 million study of the proposed 20-mile extension of the Green Line, the latest sign that the project -- long considered a pie-in-the-sky transit wish -- has increasingly become a top priority for key transportation planners in Annapolis.
"Clearly, we're racing the clock, because they are going to start building that rail up to Dulles," said Sen. John A. Giannetti Jr. (D-Prince George's), a strong proponent of the project. "If we don't connect Metro to BWI, we're not going to remain competitive."
Maryland Transportation Secretary Robert L. Flanagan said the project is also needed to handle the explosive growth at Fort Meade called for by the Pentagon's base realignment plan. Some officials said the plan will bring as many as 50,000 residents to the area.
"You don't want the growth to occur and then to try to catch up with it. That ties your hands," Flanagan said. "We need to anticipate growth that we know is going to occur and plan the subway and the growth together so that they work in unison."
The project would fulfill a decades-old goal of connecting the transit systems in Washington and Baltimore, which are quickly merging into one metropolitan area.
Aris Melissaratos, Maryland's secretary of business and economic development, said he is pushing for the extension -- which could cost about $2.5 billion -- to be completed within 10 years. Other officials and transit advocates said it was too early to offer any estimates. They said they believe the study by state transportation planners will give more accurate numbers when it is completed by early 2008.
"We need to take a reality check. All of this is pretty far out," said Ben Ross, president of the Action Committee for Transit, a public transportation advocacy group in Montgomery County. "It's very easy for [Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R)] to say he wants to build something when no construction money will have to be spent until long after he's in office."
Ross said he would support an extension of the Green Line but believes the region's top priority should be the Purple Line, a proposed link between Bethesda and Silver Spring that was shelved by the Ehrlich administration. "If we're serious about transit, we ought to get going on the Purple Line and not starting other studies," he said.
The Green Line extension would create the first Metro station in Anne Arundel, a fast-growing county of 500,000 people. One proposed alignment would also bring Metrorail to Howard County for the first time.
"We have to encourage people to get off the roads," said Anne Arundel County Executive Janet S. Owens (D), a booster of the extension project. "If everyone is in gridlock, that doesn't help the economy, that doesn't help the environment, that doesn't help any of us."
Metro spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein said the project's major obstacle will be its multibillion-dollar price tag.
"Whenever anybody considers expanding transit, it's something that we're always in favor of," she said. "The challenge will be whether that's something that Maryland could possibly fund."
Melissaratos said he hoped the federal government would fund as much as 90 percent of the project's cost. The rest would come from a combination of state, county and private investments.
Maryland officials said Virginia's progress on a proposed $4 billion Metro extension to Dulles has put pressure on them to speed up progress on the Green Line project.
"BWI and Dulles compete," Melissaratos said. "If there is talk about putting a Metro line in Dulles, you almost have to have one into BWI to remain competitive."
State officials said there is growing consensus that an extended Green Line -- which now ends at Greenbelt -- would have stops at BWI, Fort Meade, Laurel and a development called Konterra in Prince George's, near the future intersection of the intercounty connector and Interstate 95. Giannetti has proposed a route that would also include stations at Dorsey, Odenton Town Center and Guilford. Guilford is in Howard and Odenton is in Anne Arundel; Dorsey straddles the two counties.
"You really need Howard County's money to make this work," Giannetti said. "That's why we need a stop there."
Flanagan said the Green Line extension probably will only be the first of several links between the transit systems of Baltimore and Washington, where rapid development is transforming them into one region.
"Virginia is a perfect example of the growth occurring and them trying to catch up with it," he said. "We need to plan the growth around transit."
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