Baltimore’s economically struggling West Side has been awaiting the Red Line for decades.
Photographer: Baltimore Sun/Tribune News ServiceBaltimore’s Rebooted Transit Project Can’t Come Soon Enough
The Red Line, a rail plan with a troubled past, emerged as a transportation priority for Maryland Governor Wes Moore in 2024. But progress has been slow.
In his successful 2022 campaign for Maryland governor, Wes Moore often invoked a project that his predecessor sought to kill: the Red Line, a $2.9 billion plan to build a 14-mile light rail line crossing Baltimore City’s east-west axis.
Designed to connect economically hard-hit areas of the city with downtown and suburban job centers, the Red Line had been approved for $900 million in federal funding. But in 2015 then-Governor Larry Hogan, a Republican, declared the project a boondoggle and returned the federal money; the state funds were diverted to road projects far from Baltimore, earning Hogan the lasting ire of many Baltimoreans.