We came, we saw, we learned, and we grew, together
This week, more than 50 members of the RTA business coalition and several of our partners traveled together to the Annapolis and suburban Maryland area for our RTA 2026 Leadership Briefing and Tour event.
Led by honorary Maryland tour co-chairs Julie White, NCDOT Deputy Secretary for Multimodal Transportation, and NCDOT chief engineer Patrick Norman, we spent 27 hours on Monday and Tuesday of this week in a “tour de transportation.”
We began our day at 11 am on Monday morning, July 20, at our conference hotel, gathering together for networking, fellowship, and nourishment.
We then had brief introductions from a series of Maryland leaders, including Will Pines, the Administrator of the Maryland State Highway Administration; Chris Conklin, the head of the Montgomery County Department of Transportation; and Maryland Delegate Marc Korman, who chairs the House Transportation and Environment committee at the Maryland General Assembly.
We also received warm greetings from Julie White with NCDOT and our RTA chair, Ms. Sarah Gaskill with FUJIFILM Biotechnologies to start our two day visit.
There were a few focus areas and one broad theme for the remainder of our trip.
From a transit standpoint, we received a series of leadership briefings and/or field visits of MARC commuter rail, existing and proposed BRT and high frequency enhanced transit corridors and stations in Montgomery and Howard counties as well as the City of Baltimore, the largest transit microgrid in the US, the most populous jurisdiction with zero fare transit in America, and a large and expanding low and zero emissions transit fleet.
This trip also involved highway infrastructure. We visited what we believe to be the longest toll road in the eastern United States that has time of day-based pricing for all users across all lanes of travel, a parallel hiker-biker greenway trail for said freeway, as well as an excellent example of a junior freeway in Anne Arundel and Queen Anne’s counties. We also learned about an evolving, effective ramp management program to address significant recurring congestion and ameliorate rat running behavior.
Presentations
Here are links to the 6 presentations we received during the three leadership briefings of our visit:
- 1a – Montgomery Co transit – BRT overview
- 1b – Montgomery Co transit – BRT implementation
- 2 – Maryland MTA – Baltimore Red Line and BRT
- 3a – US 50 – upgrade to freeway project
- 3b – US 50 – ramp management
- 4 – Intercounty Connector (ICC, MD 200 Toll)
The BRT presentations were kicked off on Monday afternoon by Derek Gunn with State Highway Administration (SHA) District 3, serving Montgomery Co.; and Lamar Leonard, consultant BRT liaison for SHA. Montgomery County then provided an overview of the BRT program in the county, lad by Joe Moges, Chief of transportation engineering for the county, and his colleague Mr. Jamie Henson, BRT implementation manager. These BRT presentations, on Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning, were one of the centerpieces of the trip, and complemented our multiple transit field visits during our tour. We also heard from Ms. Caitlin Tobin with the Maryland Transit Administrator on Tuesday afternoon about the potential for BRT in Baltimore.
The US 50 project overview presentation also occured on Monday afternoon before our field visit. Mr. Ray Moravec, Deputy Chief Engineer with the Maryland State Highway Administration (SHA), and Mr. Steve Cohoon, Public Facilities Planner with Queen Anne’s County, gave an excellent overview of the upgrade of the US 50/301 corridor, including its origins, importance, and results. This presentation provided the background to appreciate our field visit of the corridor later that afternoon. Those were complemented by the US 50 ramp management initiative presentation by Queen Anne’s Commissioner Mr. Jim Moran as well as Steve Cohoon with county staff and Mr. Jonathan McCoy with SHA District 5 traffic engineering.
We also received an excellent presentation of the Intercounty Connector (ICC) project by Mr. Bob Michael with Maryland Transportation Authority (MDTA) in advance of our corridor field visits of the turnpike freeway that morning and the parallel ICC trail that afternoon.
Note: We will be adding a link to photos from the event here in a future update of this post.
Kudos to leadership and partnership
There are frankly a host of kudos that we could provide for our speakers, presenters, and partners from Maryland.
However, before I do that, I want to first thank our colleague Sean Egan with the City of Durham, who provided timely, essential assistance with a number of local connections on transit in Maryland. This trip either doesn’t happen as well, or at all, without his help, and RTA is grateful.
The same goes for all of our partners at NCDOT who attended, and indeed all of our transit and transportation partners from North Carolina, as well as RTA members of the business community. You can view the full list of attendees on the tour website.
From a Maryland transit standpoint, I wanted to personally thank Mr. Joe Moges, Chief of transportation engineering for Montgomery County, and Mr. Jamie Henson, BRT implementation manager for Montgomery County, not just for excellent remarks but for outstanding preparations in advance of our visit, and for spending a significant amount of time with our group during the trip. The residents of and visitors to Montgomery County are very lucky to have them, and we were honored to work with them.
We are also indebted to Mr. Ray Moravec, Deputy Chief Engineer with the Maryland State Highway Administration (SHA), and Mr. Steve Cohoon, Public Facilities Planner with Queen Anne’s County. Both Ray and Steve were instrumental in preparations for learning about and visiting the US 50 conversion to freeway initiative — a project that was completed more than 30 years ago, but is still paying daily dividends to Marylanders and visitors.
Jacob Rigg, your RTA membership operations coordinator, took care of housing, travel, and nourishment preparations for our attendees. We were well rested, well fed, and well traveled as a result. Our RTI colleague Michael Hogan, your RTA research and policy coordinator, also helped with final preparations and execution, as well as capturing the thoughts of presenters and attendees.
More kudos, and more partners
There are so many more people to thank. What follows is an incomplete list.
Our friends at the Maryland Transportation Authority (MDTA), including Bruce Gartner, Cheryl Sparks, Don Smith, David Shirk, Bob Michael, and Melissa Williams, and John Sales, ensured that the presentation and field visit to the Intercounty Connector and the parallel trail went without a hitch.
Both Ms. Caitlin Tobin and Mr. Dean Del Peschio with the Maryland Transit Administration (MTA) elevated our understanding of the future of BRT in Maryland and the workings of commuter rail, and they did so through purposeful preparation as well as day-of execution.
Maryland SHA provided excellent engagement for our group. Mr. Lamar Leonard, Maryland SHA consultant BRT liaison, provided our group with a sense of how the state transportation department works hand-in-hand with local agencies to advance transit initiatives on the state road system, and spent time with us throughout our visit. Robert Rager with SHA District 2, serving Queen Anne’s Co., and Jonathan McCoy and Kellie Boulware with SHA District 5, serving Annapolis, got us up to speed on the US 50 project and ramp management success.
Queen Anne’s County Commissioner Jim Moran has provided consistent leadership on the ramp management issue for his community, and he provided the same for us during our visit. Mr. Paul Croom, former Queen Anne’s County commissioner and executive, provided understanding and perspective on both the origin and importance of the US 50 Reach the Beach project from the 1990s.
Mr. Rich Madaleno, the Chief Administrative Officer for Montgomery County Government, provided a warm welcome for us on Tuesday morning when we visited the county’s Equipment Maintenance and Transit Operation Center. The facility is a deserved source of pride for the county and we were Joe Moges coordinated the visit. His colleagues including Ms. Haley Peckett and Ms. Maricela Cordova provided very helpful overviews into the zero fare transit and low emissions transit initiatives.
Mr. David Cookson from Howard County, and Mr. Brian Cornell, from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), noted the beginning of construction of the BRT extension into Howard County, and its importance on talent attraction and quality of life.
A special thank you to Jody Schulz, the owner of the Crab Deck restaurant, and his team. We appreciated his hospitality, his perspective on the US 50 project and the introduction to Mr. Croom.
As noted above, the list above is incomplete, and I am responsible for every omission (and will correct them in updates to this post). Even so, hopefully it gives you a sense of the scale of Maryland and North Carolina hospitality and intentionality required for a successful visit.
Faster is better
One of the themes of the trip was not formally stated, although it became discernible as the agenda progressed. It was “scalable execution beats delayed perfection”. Or more simply, “faster is better”.
This is not to say that what we saw and learned about was not excellent. Just that it did not have to be perfect. Whether it was a scalable implementation of BRT across several transit corridors in multiple counties, or a junior freeway with a series of design exceptions (and achieving no stoplights as a result), we observed results that are working now for Marylanders and visitors.
I would be remiss if I did not note that the focus theme of the 2026-27 RTA Business Plan is “Pushing for accelerated, scalable results and timely delivery.” Maryland provided a host of examples for us to begin executing on that theme, immediately.
Next steps for the metropolitan Triangle and mobility
I mentioned in last week’s blog that the most important aspect of the trip would be the chance to connect with our partners from Maryland — and with our fellow North Carolina colleagues and friends. That absolutely turned out to be the case, and I am confident that those partnerships will only continue to grow and bear fruit over time.
In summary — the Maryland tour was great, it’s people were even greater, and as a result, we are greater – and grateful for it.
So where do we go from here? We go forward. Your friendly neighborhood regional business leadership group will remain focused on executing our 2026-27 business plan in concert with our partners, informed by the successes, lessons, and perspectives from the Maryland tour and the leaders we met and learned from there.
I have said on several occasions that if you go too fast you will invariably make mistakes, and if you go too slow you will likely make even more mistakes. Let’s work together, let’s advance our mobility future faster, and let’s course correct as need be, quickly and effectively, together.
And of course, let’s get moving,
Joe
Joe Milazzo II, PE
RTA executive director
post last updated: Friday, July 24, 2026, 9:30 am
