Charles County’s transportation picture in Maryland’s newly released six-year budget is a study in contrasts: the county’s top priority — a rapid transit line to the D.C. Metro system — is moving forward, while two separate highway studies along its busiest corridor have quietly stalled.
The Maryland Department of Transportation’s FY 2027-32 Consolidated Transportation Program shows real progress on the Southern Maryland Rapid Transit (SMRT) project, an 18.7-mile, dedicated, grade-separated transit line planned along the MD 5/US 301 corridor connecting the Branch Avenue Metrorail Station in Prince George’s County to the Waldorf-White Plains area.
Planning and Environment Linkages Study screenings were completed and presented to project officials in fiscal year 2026, and the project’s funding grew by $5.2 million this cycle thanks to a third congressional directed-spending grant. Charles County’s own transportation priority letter to the state calls SMRT its “highest transportation priority,” describing it as a “transformative project” that would bring fixed-route, high-capacity transit to the region for the first time.
That momentum doesn’t extend to two other major projects along the same US 301 corridor. A long-running $12.951 million study to improve the intersection of US 301 with MD 228 and MD 5 Business has zero dollars programmed for the next six years — the CTP document says the project has been on hold for more than five years and won’t appear in the state’s final budget document at all, though funding could be restored later.
A newly proposed flyover project, meant to replace a bottlenecked triple-left-turn movement where southbound US 301 meets MD 5, carries the exact same “on hold” designation despite serving traffic volumes the state projects will grow from 101,000 vehicles a day today to 132,100 by 2046. It’s the same funding-gap language found in Calvert County’s own stalled MD 2/4 widening project in this same budget cycle.
Elsewhere, the county has clearer wins. A long-studied $16.3 million project to add safety and accessibility improvements — including traffic-calming roundabouts — along MD 6 (Charles Street) in La Plata has finally moved from the planning phase into the state’s construction program, with work expected to begin in fiscal year 2028. The project, first pegged at roughly $11.4 million in an earlier feasibility study, saw its budget grow by $10 million this cycle as it advanced into full design and construction funding. Nearby, replacement of the aging MD 225 Hawthorne Road bridge over Mattawoman Creek — a 1951-built structure rated in poor condition — is already under construction, and actually came in $1.4 million under its earlier cost estimate thanks to a favorable bid.
The budget also funds smaller safety and resurfacing work throughout the county, along with the La Plata Bikeways project connecting Milton Somers Middle School to Laurel Springs Regional Park and the Mill Hill Road Safe Routes to School project. On the transit side, Charles County is set to receive roughly $14.4 million in new funding for transit facility construction over the next two fiscal years, along with three replacement buses and continued preventive maintenance for its VanGO public transit system.
