Two of Baltimore’s top political leaders have talked about reviving the Red Line, a $2.9 billion light rail project killed by Gov. Larry Hogan six years ago that would have provided east-west connectivity through the city.
The decision by Hogan, a Republican, to pull the plug on the Red Line after taking office in 2015 has been a point of consternation for Baltimore Democrats, civil rights activists and transit advocates. By withdrawing from the project, Maryland forfeited $900 million in federal funding. The 14-mile line, which would have run from Woodlawn in the west to Bayview in the east, had been in planning for years, and the state had already spent close to $300 million.
Pete Rahn, secretary of transportation at the time, called the Red Line a “fatally flawed project.” He cited the billion-dollar cost of building a single tunnel under downtown Baltimore, Harbor East and Fells Point as one of the main problems.
