Where exactly should the future Red Line go? MTA to hear from public

Would you rather see a light rail train zipping along Pratt Street or down Baltimore Street? Or should the Red Line skirt downtown traffic in a tunnel?

The Maryland Transit Administration wants to know what you think. The agency is holding its next round of public meetings soon about the planned light rail project to connect East and West Baltimore via downtown. The focus of the meetings is to solicit feedback about options for the specific route.

In June, Gov. Wes Moore announced that the state had picked light rail over a rapid bus system as the preferred option for the roughly 14-mile line linking the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in western Baltimore County and Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in East Baltimore.

Now that we know the Red Line will be wheels on steel, not rubber on pavement, the transit agency needs to condense three possible routes into a "state-selected alternative." That would be the route on which they move forward for engineering and apply for funding.

State officials and advocates lauded the project, which had been canceled by Republican Larry Hogan when he was governor, as a transformational opportunity for the Baltimore region. But its high price tag — between $3.2 billion and $7.2 billion — will make it a tough buy for a state with big plans and short on cash. Some won't believe the Red Line is real until they see shovels in the dirt.

The three proposed routes follow the same general trajectory but have key differences near the western terminus, downtown and east of downtown. Two of the routes are entirely surface routes. A third — the most expensive but also the one that fares best on trip times and ridership in data modeling — would require the construction of a new tunnel underneath downtown.

You can learn more and share your thoughts with the MTA at the following open houses that kick off next week:

The megaproject, which would be the first meaningful expansion of public transit in Baltimore in more than three decades, has become something of a red political line in the sand.

Democrats harshly criticized Hogan when he canceled the project during his first term in office and returned hundreds of millions in federal funds to help build it. Lawmakers in deep blue Maryland said it was a sign that Hogan didn't care about Baltimore. Many are reminding Maryland of Hogan's record now that he's running for an open seat in the U.S. Senate against Prince George's County Executive Angela Alsobrooks.

Hogan reportedly hasn't changed his opinion that the project would be a massive waste of taxpayer funds and not actually deliver the promised impact. Some fear that he could work to derail the project a second time if elected to the Senate, as the state won't be able to build it without federal grants.

For now, the MTA is forging ahead. The transportation department has budgeted about $151 million toward planning and engineering through fiscal year 2030 and, in June, announced that it had awarded a $100 million contract for pre-engineering work to Pennsylvania engineering firm Gannett Fleming Inc.