Greater Baltimore Committee to Propose Gas Tax Increase to Close Transportation Funding Gap

To: TRANSPORTATION EDITORS

Contact: Gene Bracken, +1-410-727-2820 ext. 33, +1-410-274-0287 (cell), or Diane Hughes, +1-410-727-2820 ext. 32, both of the Greater Baltimore Committee

BALTIMORE, Sept. 21 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The following was issued today by the Greater Baltimore Committee:

WHO:

Greater Baltimore Committee President & CEO Donald C. Fry

Greater Baltimore Committee Chairman of the Board Atwood Collins III

WHAT:

News briefing to announce gas tax proposal

WHEN:

1:30 p.m., Friday, September 21, 2007

WHERE:

MARC platform at Oriole Park at Camden Yards

(Park at North Warehouse lot in front of Sports Legends Museum)

BACKGROUND:

Citing disappointment in the level of transportation funding in Gov. Martin O’Malley’s proposed plan to increase state revenues, leaders of the Greater Baltimore Committee are expected to call for a gas tax increase to provide $600 million in additional revenue to the state’s Transportation Trust Fund.

That is the minimum annual increase transportation experts say is needed for the state to be able to provide adequate funding to begin addressing a more than $40 billion backlog of highway, transit, port, and airport projects currently planned but not yet funded for construction, the GBC contends.

The Governor’s plan to close the state’s $1.7 billion deficit, expand health care access, and strengthen transportation resources includes only a $400 million transportation funding increase.

GBC leaders note that even though O’Malley’s proposal places a substantial burden of new taxes on businesses and business owners, it fails to adequately deliver the business community’s top economic development priority — bolstering the state’s Transportation Trust Fund — while it fully addresses the General Fund deficit and other items on the Governor’s and legislative leaders’ operational wish list.

Given Maryland’s projections for growth in the next 25 years, funding improvement to its transportation infrastructure is the state’s top economic development challenge, the GBC contends. Preliminary results of a recent Texas Transportation Institute study of the cost of congestion bear out the urgency of addressing transportation issues, according to the GBC.

SOURCE Greater Baltimore Committee

(c) 2007 U.S. Newswire. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.