LA PLATA — Charles County is asking the state to keep its long-promised rapid transit line to the D.C. Metro moving, warning that a proposed detour to study commuter buses could cost the project years and the $30 million lined up to pay for its next phase.
The Board of County Commissioners on Oct. 27 approved a letter of concern to Maryland Transportation Secretary Katie Thomson and Maryland Transit Administration Administrator Tony Bridges. Commissioner President Reuben B. Collins II will sign it for the board. The letter asks the state to move the Southern Maryland Rapid Transit project, known as SMRT, into the federal environmental review required for major transit projects, rather than pausing it while the state looks at all-day commuter bus service.
For commuters stuck on Maryland 5 and U.S. 301, the dispute is about time. Planning Director Jason Groff told commissioners the fixed-guideway project, either light rail or bus rapid transit, will take at least seven to 10 years to build once it advances. Every year it waits pushes that date further out.
Why the county thinks the project is stalling
Groff said the project has $15 million in federal earmarks, now called congressionally directed spending, plus a state match that is supposed to equal it. But the state’s six-year transportation budget, the Consolidated Transportation Program, shows only $5 million in state money for SMRT, leaving it $10 million short, he said.
He pointed to a 2021 state law, Transportation Article 7-713, that he said directs the project’s funding toward taking it through the National Environmental Policy Act process, known as NEPA. That review is where planners weigh the alternatives and environmental effects before engineering and design can start.
Instead, Groff said, the state project team has asked Charles and Prince George’s counties to agree to a side study of all-day commuter bus service along the corridor, and to hold off on NEPA while it is done. He said state staff have acknowledged in technical meetings that they could start that bus service now, using existing money and in-house planners, without a joint study.
Groff said he believes the state’s budget pressures are behind the shift, and he was careful to call that speculation. Part of the federal process requires a project to identify its future construction funding. The main federal source for big transit projects, the Federal Transit Administration’s Capital Investment Grants program, is currently funding mostly bus projects and very few light rail or bus rapid transit lines, he said. The state team has used that to argue SMRT is not ripe, a conclusion Groff said has no firm factual basis.
“I don’t think there’s any malice here,” Groff said. He described it as funding constraints steering the project toward a delay.
Buses now, rail later
The county is not against more buses. Groff said MTA commuter buses out of Charles now run only at peak hours. The state has floated keeping that express service from Waldorf to D.C. while adding a second, all-day route with stops along the corridor, which could reach places riders can’t easily get to today without transfers, such as Joint Base Andrews and the hospital in Clinton.
The letter encourages the state to grow corridor ridership with new bus service paid for out of existing funds while the rapid transit project continues as planned. Groff said state project staff have told the county they agree a fixed-guideway option is the only long-term solution for the corridor.
Ridership has been a sore point. Groff recalled that the state cut funding in 2017 for the W19 Metrobus route that served the Indian Head Highway area. Commuter bus ridership fell sharply during COVID and is growing again, he said, though riders now travel on different days and at different hours than before, so some runs are full while others carry few people.
Commissioner Amanda M. Stewart said she and Groff had raised the issue with the transportation secretary and MTA staff and that she had spoken with Gov. Wes Moore about Southern Maryland’s needs. She said the state should collect data on why people are not riding commuter buses, such as schedules or drop-off points, and fix those problems.
Stronger language on federal policy
Stewart asked to toughen one paragraph of the letter. Her revision says the MTA and its consultants have put heavy emphasis on the current federal administration’s transportation policies and grant criteria, particularly for light rail. Federal administrations change, her language continues, and decisions on SMRT should not be driven primarily by the funding preferences of a single administration. The project should stay focused on its established purpose and need and on Southern Maryland’s long-term transportation demand.
Another commissioner agreed with the wording, noting that transportation priorities ebb and flow with each administration and that the current governor has been more open to light rail.
The board approved the letter with Stewart’s edits by voice vote. Commissioners Gilbert O. Bowling III and Ralph E. Patterson II were absent.
Two decades as the top priority
SMRT would run along the Maryland 5 and U.S. 301 corridor from the Branch Avenue Metro Station area near the Capital Beltway to the Waldorf and White Plains area. The MTA’s current planning study is weighing bus rapid transit, light rail, hybrid rail and other options, and it held a second round of public open houses late last year, taking comments through Jan. 11, 2026.
Groff called the line the county’s No. 1 transportation priority for two decades. In September, the state’s draft six-year budget showed the rapid transit project moving forward while highway studies in the corridor stalled, and the final plan also put money toward MD 5 and local bus service.
Groff said new highways are largely off the table because the land along the corridor is built out, while a transit line could mostly use existing road right of way with little property to buy.
The letter now goes to Thomson and Bridges. The state’s response will shape whether SMRT enters federal environmental review on schedule or waits on the bus study. It lands as Maryland faces a projected gap of roughly $3 billion in its next budget, which state officials have told agencies to plan around with cuts.
