Narrative Questions
Describe your vision of a healthy, safe, equitable transportation system for the Baltimore Region and the roles walking, biking, and public transportation play in that vision.
My vision for a healthy, safe, and equitable transportation system for the Baltimore Region revolves around three tenets. We must:
invest in a 21st Century transportation system
address structural racism in our transportation system
increase transparency and oversight of our transportation investments.
You can find more about these three tenets on my campaign website. Every resident should have multiple ways to access work and appointments - public transit, biking, walking, automobile. No one in the Baltimore region should have to rely solely on a car to get them to where they need to be every single day.
In order to create this system, it is important that the State take a multimodal approach to its transportation needs. For far too long, MDOT has focused on roads and highways to serve its transportation needs. Walking, biking, and transit are the future of our transportation system and the only way to curb climate change, increase public access, and address structural racism.
The fastest and most economical way to address climate change, improve public health, and create equal access to opportunity is to reduce dependence on private automobiles. What are the biggest barriers to getting people to choose walking, biking, and public transit instead of personal vehicles for daily trips, and what would you do to address these impediments?
The biggest barrier to getting people to choose walking, biking, and public transit instead of personal vehicles for daily trips is the lack of an efficient, reliable, and equitable multimodal transportation system. Throughout my legislative career, I have worked across the political spectrum to push for our transit system to have the resources it needs to not only maintain the existing system but to also transform it. And one of the key tenets of my campaign for Comptroller is to build a more just, equitable, resilient, and competitive transportation system. Without a partner in the Governor’s office or at MDOT, however, legislators can do only so much.
Before being elected to office, I was very involved in the Red Line effort, serving on my station area advisory committee and on the citywide Citizen’s Council. Losing the Red Line was truly devastating to our City and region - and to so many people who spent years working on it and made investments based on its promise. As a “replacement” for the Red Line, the Hogan Administration implemented the BaltimoreLink system, but this was in no way a substitution for the Red Line. And, to be frank, the service that BaltimoreLink provides has been and continues to be woefully inadequate for the needs of the region, largely due to the anemic funding the current Administration has provided MTA. BaltimoreLink is a clear example of a failure to create a functional transportation system - pushing people who can afford it to drive personal vehicles while saddling those who can least afford it with woefully inadequate service.
It is critically important to enhance our transportation network in a manner that provides equitable, safe, and reliable transit in order to connect workers to the State’s job centers. To do that, we have to find new sources of revenue for our Transportation Trust Fund.
My record in the State Legislature shows my commitment to provide equitable, safe and reliable transit. Faced with the most anti-transit administration in recent memory, I helped form the Transit Caucus - one of the largest bipartisan, bicameral caucuses in state government in Maryland, and still going strong years later.
In the most recent legislative session, I was an ardent supporter of the Maryland Regional Rail Transformation Act, which seeks to extend MARC service throughout the State. I also supported House Bill 632, which seeks to get the Red Line moving again, and House Bill 656, the Safe Access for All Roads Act which would have required the implementation of pedestrian and bicycle safety improvements. I was also the floor leader for HB 141, the Equity in Transportation bill, to ensure more equitable spending of resources on transit.
In 2021, I sponsored and successfully achieved the passage of House Bill 114 - the Transit Safety and Investment Act - which secured over $3 billion in funding for the Maryland Transit Administration through fiscal year 2029. In 2018 I cosponsored the Maryland Metro Transit Funding Act, which provided a substantial increase in Maryland’s share of operating and capital funds for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority and required the creation of a Regional Transit Plan for central Maryland - one that MTA recently released and will form the basis for federal asks for money and rewards. I also founded the Maryland Transit Caucus to ensure that the General Assembly had a voice for equitable and high-quality transit throughout the state.
As Comptroller, I will continue to fight to improve our transportation system to help prevent climate change, improve public access, and prioritize equity.
Maryland and its jurisdictions continue to spend money on road and highway widening despite overwhelming evidence that it actually increases traffic and congestion through induced demand. Justification for widening is often that it will improve road safety, which is also discredited. What is your position on Maryland and its jurisdictions spending money this way, and would you support a moratorium on road and highway widening?
My stance on a moratorium would depend on the degree to which it prioritizes climate change and environmental justice and is supported by the areas it affects the most. My stance would also hinge on whether these projects include true mass transit components.
As a member of the BPW, one of the most crucial roles of the state Comptroller is oversight of large projects. The I-495/I-270 managed lanes public-private partnership (P3) is a perfect example of a highway widening project that, as it stands, is unworkable. As I have said in public social media and meetings throughout my campaign, I do not believe the project as it currently stands is acceptable: it does not present a good value for Marylanders, it will not solve congestion, and it will increase greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, I would not vote to approve any section of the project. I look forward to working with local government officials and the next MDOT Secretary and Governor to create a plan that will actually mitigate congestion, including increasing transit options, clearing up bottlenecks on I-270, and developing alternative plans.
Describe your understanding for the need of a Baltimore Regional Transportation Authority. Do you support creation of a regional authority, and if so, how would you legislate or guide the state’s role in creating and sustaining it?
I support any effort that provides the State’s regions with more say in how transportation dollars are spent - especially if those dollars are going toward a transportation system that curbs climate change, improves public access, and prioritizes equity. In the most recent legislative session, I supported House Bill 1336, which established the Greater Baltimore Transit Governance and Funding Commission. I look forward to attending the Commission’s meetings and reviewing their recommendation at the conclusion of their work.
Since the 1990’s federal surface transportation authorization laws have set the rules and formulas for federal transportation funding flowing to states. Two of the largest categories, the Surface Transportation Block Grant program and the National Highway Performance Program, can be used for many forms of surface transportation including highways, transit, bike, pedestrian, and ADA infrastructure. However, state departments of transportation, MDOT included, have used them almost exclusively for highway projects and much of its new capacity. That has resulted in growth in traffic volumes, travel times, and carbon pollution. In your view, why have those trends continued?
I believe that these trends have continued across the nation because governments have given up on creating efficient, reliable, and equitable multimodal transportation systems and because we have not done a good enough job at building a vocal majority to pressure elected officials to fund transit. In most polling that I have seen in the past decade in Maryland, improving transit has ranked near the bottom of priorities for voters. When I was first elected, it was an issue avoided by many elected officials. Finally, transportation policy is largely about budgetary priorities and requires in-the-weeds understanding of the budget process - by both advocacy organizations and elected officials. Creating better transit does not lend itself to one quick-fix piece of legislation.
Here in Maryland, for many years our underfunded transportation trust fund played a role in hampering transit improvement - and for a while the entire focus was the Red Line and Purple Line - with no thought to the fact that our bus systems would carry more people than either line. For the past 8 years, we have had one of the most anti-transit governors in the nation, and his MDOT secretaries have been no different. The cancellation of the Red Line, failure of Baltimore Link, veto of the recently passed Maryland Regional Rail Transportation Act, all point toward policy decisions that overlook walking, biking and transit - even to the detriment of the basic safety needs of our existing transit.
I hope that the next Administration will shift priorities. As Comptroller, I will be a statewide voice to ensure that those priorities do shift and be a voice to steer federal dollars in a manner that creates a system that is equitable and environmentally friendly.
How do you typically commute to work or run errands? Describe the last trips you made by walking, biking, and public transit.
When I worked downtown as a federal law clerk and then when I started at my law firm, I primarily walked or took a scooter. Once I had a child, I then began driving when it was my turn to do pick up. And, since I have been a delegate and as a statewide candidate, I primarily use a car to travel to/from work.
One of the reasons we live downtown, though, is so that we can walk to reach many activities - whether that is walking to the grocery store (which is primarily how we shop), walking to restaurants, using the water taxi in the summers, or using scooters and biking to get to Orioles games. Although we do bike now when going to Orioles games or other downtown locations on the weekends, I am anxious for more protected bike lanes to ensure the safety of my kids when we ride around.
Agree/Disagree Questions
Maryland and its jurisdictions should be required to “fix-it-first,” funding deferred maintenance of bridges and roads and safety retrofits like road diets, sidewalks, ADA compliance, and other infrastructure prioritizing vulnerable road users before spending on new roads and infrastructure.
Agree
Maryland should adopt a funding rubric for all transportation investment that follows a modal hierarchy prioritizing pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit riders over personal automobile use, and mandates that these investments prioritize racial and economic equity.
Agree
These priorities are key, but I also believe it must also be done regionally. Multimodal transportation is important around the state, including in Cumberland and Salisbury, but cars are also more necessary in these areas as well and create a rigid rubric would not necessarily account for these variable needs around the state.
Highway User Revenues continue to decrease as cars become more efficient, and semi-autonomous driving technology is allowing more comfortable long distance commutes. To address this, Maryland should introduce an income-based Vehicle Miles Traveled tax.
TBD: I think this is an interesting idea, especially as EVs increase, and believe we should undertake a pilot program like in Oregon to better determine how much revenue it would bring and if there were unforeseen disproportionate impacts.
Maryland should require and fund all-ages-and abilities bicycle infrastructure in retrofits of existing roads and construction of new roads, including fully separated infrastructure or side paths/trails on collector roads, arterial roads, state highways, and interstates.
Agree
This should happen to create a network and safe infrastructure but should not be done on areas where the rest of the project will never be built out - leaving ½ mile of sidewalk or sidepath along a state highway and then nothing else for 120 miles.
There has been a dramatic increase in car crashes that injure and kill people walking and biking, who are then frequently sued by a driver’s insurance. Maryland should move from contributory negligence to a strict liability model for crashes involving vulnerable road users.
Disagree
I believe we should move to a comparative negligence standard like in nearly every other state.
Paired with a requirement for income-based fines, Maryland should authorize jurisdictions to utilize additional types of automated enforcement like bus lane cameras and stop sign cameras, remove geographic restrictions, and allow a reduced threshold for triggering speed cameras.
Agree
Maryland should allow local jurisdictions to lower their own speed limits based on roadway typology instead of based on expensive engineering studies for each road segment, and should set a statewide upper urban speed limit of 25 miles per hour.
Agree to the first part; undecided on the second - if the goal is to give local jurisdictions more power to determine safe speed limits, then enacting the second part would be contrary to that idea.
Maryland should require employers provide “Parking Cash Out,” valuing the cost of parking subsidized or paid for by employers and allowing employees the option of taking that benefit as a cash payout in the amount of the parking subsidy instead.
Disagree
Maryland should require jurisdictions to eliminate parking minimums and institute parking maximums in new development, as well as require the cost of parking be unbundled from rent, giving individuals the choice to rent without paying for parking.
Agree to the first part; disagree on the second part because I do not think Maryland should necessarily be involved in how landlords structure this type of payment.
It’s widely accepted that single family zoning advances racial and economic segregation. Maryland should ban single family zoning at the state level, allowing both single family and multifamily residences to be built in all zoning areas.
Restrictive zoning contributes to racial and economic segregation as well higher home costs. At the same time, neither Maryland’s anemic state planning department nor its legislature has expertise on zoning issues because these issues have been handled at the local level. Therefore, I believe that in a new Administration with a more robust planning department, the General Assembly should work with that department to study zoning and housing in areas around the state and beginning to move forward with statewide requirements. For instance, I do believe that the state should work with counties to enact more zoning laws that allow for ADUs in more circumstances. This legislative session, we had the first bill that I have ever seen introduced to do just that - begin a conversation about being more involved in zoning at the state level and allow for ADUs by right. I look forward to encouraging this type of study and discussion and action if I am the next Comptroller.