by MARK REUTTER

Of all the media announcements made last Thursday by Maryland politicians and bureaucrats eager to claim credit for $70 million in federal stimulus funds awarded to the state for high-speed rail projects, perhaps the one most untethered to reality came from state Transportation Secretary Beverley Swaim-Staley.

“We were a big winner,” she told The Baltimore Sun.

In fact, in the race among the states to secure federal money to improve passenger rail service, Maryland is a big loser.

The bulk of Maryland’s award – $60 million – was not “new” money, but money approved (but not yet appropriated) by Congress to prepare plans for a replacement Amtrak tunnel in West Baltimore. The only new money Maryland got was a paltry $9.5 million to advance the design of an enlarged station at BWI Airport.

Why Maryland lost out to such competitors as California (awarded $2.25 billion) and Florida (awarded $1.25 billion) is quite simple – the state had failed to lay the engineering, environmental and financial groundwork for “shovel-ready” rail infrastructure projects. Thus, Maryland got funds for two projects that would be of immense value to MARC and Amtrak riders but it is money to plan them, not build them.

What Other States Brought to the Table

California came to the federal grant program well prepared (with futuristic videos like this, for instance.) The state had completed environmental assessments on a proposed high-speed rail line between San Francisco and Los Angeles and was armed with the authority to float $9 billion in state bonds, approved by voters in November 2008. California got the largest slice of the $8-billion rail stimulus pie.

Likewise, Florida has secured 90 percent of the right-of-way needed for its proposed high-speed line between Tampa and Orlando. The Florida legislature strongly backed the proposal and funded new rail commuter lines in Orlando and South Florida. Even the state of Washington picked up a sizable federal grant –$598 million – to rebuild the rail line between Seattle and Portland, which serves far fewer riders than those carried on MARC and Amtrak trains through Baltimore.

The West Baltimore tunnel – officially known as the Baltimore & Potomac (B&P) Tunnel – has been identified as the worst bottleneck on the Northeast Corridor between Boston and Washington for decades. Opened in 1873, the tunnel stretches 7,670 feet, with two air pockets, below Wilson and Winchester streets.

Because of a sharp curve at Pennsylvania Avenue and narrow clearances throughout, all passenger trains must slow to 30 mph to pass through the tunnel. As early as 1920, the Pennsylvania Railroad wanted to replace the tunnel. The railroad purchased land along Presstman Street for a new bore, but the project was cancelled during the 1930s Depression.

A Study That Went Nowhere

By sheer luck, there has never been a serious derailment in the West Baltimore tunnel. The same cannot be said for the equally obsolete Howard Street Tunnel used by CSX freight trains traveling through Baltimore. A derailment on July 18, 2001 sparked a chemical fire that raged for nearly a week below Howard Street, rupturing water mains and disrupting the downtown.

Prodded by the accident, Congress authorized in November 2001 a detailed study of tunnels and other rail infrastructure in Baltimore. The cost of the $3 million study was to be shared equally by the federal government, state of Maryland, and the two freight railroads serving Baltimore, CSX and Norfolk Southern.

Only the feds put up their share of funding. Maryland contributed $250,000, while the freight railroads refused to pay anything at all.

With such little backing, the resulting 2005 report to Congress, Baltimore’s Railroad Network: Challenges and Alternatives, read much like its title – an academic history without any action plan, or detailed engineering assessment, of the tunnel problem.

The Cummings Earmark

Another three years of Maryland slumber passed before Rep. Ejilah Cummings inserted a $60 million earmark in an Amtrak authorization bill to fund an engineering and environmental impact assessment as a first step toward a new tunnel.

When the $60 million failed to materialize in Congressional allocations last year, the request was transferred to Maryland’s stimulus rail package submitted to the Federal Railroad Administration and was funded last Thursday. (In addition to the tunnel project, the O’Malley administration sought $290 million for a “wish list” of infrastructure projects that it had not developed beyond an embryonic stage, including replacing the two-track Bush, Gunpowder and Susquehanna river bridges with wider three-track bridges. These funding requests were rejected.)

10 Years to Complete?

With study money at hand, how long will it take Maryland DOT, Amtrak and other parties to complete an environmental and engineering study – not to speak of securing the land and actually building a West Baltimore tunnel?

Swaim-Staley made a point of telling the Sun that constructing the tunnel would be “vastly more complex” than improving BWI station.

Reconstruction of BWI station, including a new track and platform, could cost $80 million to $100 million, according to state officials, while a replacement Baltimore tunnel could take 10 years and $1 billion to complete.

If this is the case, MARC and Amtrak passengers will be left far in the dust by the competition. Down in Florida, the state DOT has promised to build from scratch the 90-mile Tampa-Orlando “bullet line,” including five major stations, by January 2015.

— For more on the Obama high-speed rail program, see this recent report written by Mark Reutter for the Progressive Policy Institute.

— Here’s a Time Magazine article that sizes up the high-speed rail situation in the U.S. pretty well — and mentions Mark’s report.