Metro line will not come to Frederick

Officials say extending train north would be too expensive

‘‘It’s not going to happen,” Gugel said in an interview this week.

Frederick County Commissioner Charles A. Jenkins (R) concurred. ‘‘It’s a dead issue,” said Jenkins, liaison to the Washington Council of Government’s Transportation Planning Board.

For residents hoping to ease their commute, county officials contend it is fruitless to bet on Metro. Add to the mix a bill this legislative session by Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Dist. 27) of Chesapeake Bay to increase the state gasoline tax from 23.5 cents to 35.5 cents per gallon, and the future for commuters looks bleak.

Money from the tax is expected to bring in between $400 million and $600 million for transportation improvements outside Frederick County.

On Tuesday, Jenkins told Sen. David R. Brinkley (R-Dist. 4) of New Market and Del. Richard B. Weldon Jr. (R-Dist. 3B) of Brunswick that he has no intention of remaining quiet on the issue of the gasoline tax, since none of the money is slated for Frederick.

The Frederick delegation to the Maryland General Assembly was invited to Tuesday’s regular meeting of the Frederick Board of County Commissioners to weigh in on the county’s top highway improvement priorities for state funding.

Brinkley and Weldon, the delegation chairman, showed up, and said they both oppose the gasoline tax increase because none of the money would come back to Frederick County.

The money is slated for a 14-mile Purple Line linking Bethesda, Silver Spring, College Park and New Carrollton on the Metro system. Brinkley said the added revenue from the tax is also slated to pay for improvements to the light rail system in Baltimore City.

‘‘I think it’s absurd with gas at $3.15 a gallon, that you now add a gas tax [increase] and the money is not coming back to us,” Brinkley said.

Weldon told commissioners he has pushed for other ways to raise money for road improvements in the county. He supports a 1-cent increase in the state sales tax. The additional money would go in the state’s Transportation Trust Fund.

The money would then be dedicated to mass transit and rural roads in Frederick County. ‘‘We’ve tried to be part of the solution, not the problem,” Weldon said.

Part of the solution may be decades-old plans for the Corridor Cities Transitway — bus or light rail along Interstate 270 from the Shady Grove Metro station to a station in Clarksburg and into the Frederick MARC station on East Street.

Commissioners were asked Tuesday by the county’s planning staff to consider putting money toward the project in fiscal 2008, which starts July 1. Commissioners made no decision on funding.

Gugel said in an interview that the cost to build the Transitway from Gaithersburg to Clarksburg is $1.5 billion to $2 billion. From Clarksburg to Frederick is another $1.5 billion to $2 billion.

A county portion of the money would be matched with state and federal funding to conduct an engineering study of the Frederick portion, said Denis Superczynski, principal planner with the county’s Planning Division. Costs have yet to be determined for the study.

Commission President Jan H. Gardner (D) said it would be more viable to have bus service. ‘‘I don’t think a rail line is possible because of the typography,” she said.

Under the Corridor Cities Transitway is a new bus service, or what transportation officials call ‘‘Bus Rapid Transit.” A separate road would be built for special buses that would travel along the same alignment as the MARC train, from Frederick to Shady Grove. The road would only allow buses. Jenkins said increasing MARC service is not in the plans. CSX, which owns the tracks, would have to make the decision to offer more service. The county has not discussed this option with CSX, he said.