The state’s transportation funding problems didn’t begin with Wes Moore or Larry Hogan—and unless lawmakers act in 2027, they’re about to get much worse.
By Michael Phillips | MDBayNews
Maryland drivers pay the gas tax, the registration fees, and the titling costs. Most of that money doesn’t go to the roads they drive on.
State budget data shows 75.1 percent of Maryland commuters drive alone or carpool. Only 5 percent use public transit. Yet the state’s Transportation Trust Fund sends roughly 52 to 53 percent of its spending to transit and just 22 to 26 percent to highways — a gap wide enough that the Maryland Transportation Builders and Materials Association calls it “structural,” not incidental.
It is structural. That’s the part getting lost in the outrage.
The Cliff Nobody Built On Purpose
Local governments maintain more than 80 percent of Maryland’s road miles. They receive less than a fifth of transportation revenue to do it. That imbalance dates to the 2007 recession, when the state slashed local road funding to plug budget holes and never fully restored it.
The law was written with an expiration built in.
In 2022, the Hogan administration pushed a fix. Chapter 240 of 2022 — introduced “By Request – Administration” under Gov. Larry Hogan, sponsored by a slate of Republican senators and delegates — temporarily boosted the share of corporate income tax revenue feeding Maryland’s Gasoline and Motor Vehicle Revenue Account, raising local governments’ cut through fiscal 2027. It was framed as restoring balance to local road funding.
But the law was written with an expiration built in. The boosted rate steps back down after fiscal 2027. When it does, the county share of transportation revenue drops from roughly 20 percent to 15.6 percent — a nearly $110 million single-year cut hitting in fiscal 2028, growing to an estimated $520 million cumulative shortfall by fiscal 2031, according to the Maryland Association of Counties.
A Republican administration built the patch. Nobody of either party has made it permanent.
The Fix That Died Without A Vote
This year’s General Assembly had a chance to head off the cliff. Senate Bill 288, sponsored solely by Sen. Antonio McCray, and its House companion, HB 559 — sponsored by a bloc of Democratic delegates — would have raised the GMVRA share flowing to local governments starting fiscal 2027, redirecting an estimated $227.6 million that year, climbing to $351.2 million by fiscal 2031.
Both bills got hearings. Neither got a floor vote.
Both bills got hearings. Neither got a floor vote. The Maryland Association of Counties, which supported the legislation, said plainly in its end-of-session report that the bill “DID NOT pass in the 2026 session,” and pointed to “the post-election 2027 legislative session” as the next opportunity.
A competing idea also died. HB 916 and SB 674 would have created three new regional transportation taxing authorities — in the Baltimore, Capital, and Southern Maryland regions — funded by new sales, hotel, and transfer tax surcharges. Supporters, including Gov. Wes Moore’s administration, pitched it as a way to raise dedicated transportation revenue outside the existing formula fights. It also stalled in committee.
Nothing moved. Not the relief bill. Not the new tax alternative. The 2026 General Assembly adjourned sine die on April 13, having done nothing on either front, leaving the fiscal 2028 cliff exactly where it was in January.
Nothing moved. Not the relief bill. Not the new-tax alternative.
A Bridge Maryland Can’t Fund Alone
Separately — and permanently, regardless of who occupies the governor’s office — Maryland is bound by Transportation Article Section 10-205(g) to send the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority at least $167 million a year in dedicated capital funding, on top of a base capital grant that state law requires to grow 3 percent annually once certified. Combined with Virginia and Washington, D.C.’s matching obligations, that’s a $500 million annual floor for WMATA capital funding alone, before counting Maryland’s separate WMATA operating subsidy. A new regional plan, DMVMoves, is asking the three jurisdictions for another $460 million a year starting in fiscal 2029.
This is not a Moore-era invention. It dates to WMATA’s 1967 interstate compact. Larry Hogan was bound by it too — and it didn’t stop him from also getting entangled in Maryland’s other major transit commitment.
Four Projects, Four Deadlines, Four Slips
Gov. Wes Moore has spent his first term reversing two of his predecessor’s infrastructure decisions, managing a third that neither man chose, and inheriting the fallout from a fourth. All four have missed their announced timelines.
The Purple Line. Hogan initially moved to cancel the light rail project in 2015, calling it too expensive, before reversing course months later and structuring it as a $5.6 billion public-private partnership. The original contractor walked off the job in 2020 amid an $850 million cost dispute, and by January 2022 the state had signed a new contract that raised the total cost to $9.3 billion and pushed the opening from March 2022 to fall 2026. The slippage continued under Moore. In 2023, MTA and the new builder requested another extension, moving the opening to winter 2027 and adding $148 million to the price tag. “I share the frustration of our residents… and taxpayers,” Moore said before the Board of Public Works approved the delay, adding that “our administration will complete this project… in a fiscally responsible manner.” The line’s final stretch of track was laid in May 2026 — by the Washington Post’s count, nearly $5 billion over its original budget and five and a half years behind schedule — with passenger service still not expected until late 2027.
The Baltimore Red Line. Hogan canceled it outright in 2015, calling it a “boondoggle,” and redirected roughly $900 million in forfeited federal transit funding to suburban road projects. The NAACP and ACLU of Maryland filed a Title VI civil rights complaint alleging the cancellation discriminated against Baltimore’s majority-Black population; the Obama administration’s DOT investigated, and the Trump administration’s DOT closed the case in 2017 with no finding. Moore revived the project in June 2023, telling Bloomberg it would be built “in our term. It is not a compromise.” He selected light rail over bus rapid transit in June 2024. The state’s own materials had targeted a route and alignment decision by winter 2023-2024; that milestone came and went. By March 2026, the Baltimore Banner reported MTA was quietly developing contingency plans to pivot back to bus rapid transit — the option Moore had explicitly rejected — citing land acquisition problems in a since-redeveloped East Baltimore corridor and a federal pause on the environmental review process needed to secure funding. Central Maryland Transportation Alliance president Brian O’Malley noted that by the end of Moore’s first term, it will mark the seventh consecutive gubernatorial term with no expansion of Baltimore’s transit system. “That’s a choice,” he said.
The American Legion Bridge. Hogan and then-Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam struck a 2019 deal with the private toll operator Transurban to widen the bridge and add managed toll lanes along I-495 and I-270. Weeks into office in 2023, Moore killed the deal; Transurban withdrew. Moore pursued federal funding instead for nearly three years. In December 2025, the Trump administration’s Federal Highway Administration published a request for interest, noting Maryland lacks “the requisite bonding capacity” to rebuild the aging bridge alone. Moore met with U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy in January 2026 and reversed course again, agreeing to “leverage” a public-private partnership to accelerate the project. “I’m not against P3s,” Moore told reporters. “I’m against dumb P3s.” In April 2026, Moore established Maryland’s first dedicated state P3 office to help deliver it, with Transurban back in federal conversations weeks later.
The Francis Scott Key Bridge. Struck and collapsed on March 26, 2024, killing six road workers, with initial rebuild estimates under $2 billion and a 2028 completion target. By November 2025, the state’s own cost estimate had more than doubled to $4.3–5.2 billion, with completion pushed to late 2030. In April 2026, the state abruptly canceled its contract with builder Kiewit for the project’s second phase, with Moore and Secretary Duffy both citing a bid that “far exceeded” state cost estimates. The state has not disclosed Kiewit’s exact asking price, citing confidential negotiations, but U.S. Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) said on WBAL Radio in May that the figure had grown to “as high as 8 or 9” billion — well above the $5.2 billion Maryland transportation officials say they’re still holding firm on as the state searches for a new contractor.
The Swapped-Jerseys Test
None of this supports the theory that Maryland’s spending priorities reflect a governor, or a party, trying to force people out of their cars. The record doesn’t sort that cleanly.
A Republican governor built the funding cliff now squeezing county roads. Democratic legislators tried to fix it this year and couldn’t get a floor vote. A Republican-led federal transportation department is the one pushing hardest right now for the private-toll-lane financing model Maryland’s Democratic governor once rejected as a “dumb P3.” And a Democratic governor’s marquee transit promise — the Red Line — is now on the same track his predecessor’s marquee highway promise was on: announced with a deadline, missed, and quietly reconsidered.
Run the test either direction — swap the party labels on any of these decisions — and the substance doesn’t change.
Maryland’s transportation system runs on temporary patches, interstate compacts nobody can unilaterally exit, and infrastructure timelines that don’t survive contact with construction costs, land acquisition, and federal funding uncertainty.
That’s a genuine accountability story. It just isn’t the one being told on social media.
The fiscal 2028 cliff is still coming. The next chance to stop it is the 2027 legislative session — the first session after Marylanders vote in November.
Sources: Maryland Department of Transportation Fiscal 2026 and 2027 Budget Overviews (Department of Legislative Services); Spotlight on Maryland/Baltimore Sun reporting on Transportation Trust Fund spending; Maryland Association of Counties 2026 End of Session Wrap-Up; Maryland General Assembly bill records for SB 288, HB 559, HB 916, and SB 674 (2026 Regular Session); Maryland Transportation Article Section 10-205(g); MDOT-WMATA Operating Budget Analyses (Fiscal 2023, 2025, 2026, 2027); Maryland Matters and Bethesda Magazine reporting on the American Legion Bridge P3 reversal; The Baltimore Banner reporting on the Baltimore Red Line and the Francis Scott Key Bridge contractor cancellation; Wikipedia entry on the Red Line (Baltimore) civil rights complaint history; Governor Wes Moore press office statements.
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