A recent interview with Ray LaHood, secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation, sheds more light on why Maryland and several other Northeast states with substantial rail passenger needs got so little of the $8 billion in federal stimulus money recently awarded for high-speed-rail projects.

LaHood said in the Huffington Post that the Obama administration looked favorably on states that had “shovel-ready” projects, governors who lined up support for the projects and legislatures willing to pony up matching funds. Florida and Illinois each received more than $1 billion, while California got $2.25 billion, in part because they were well prepared.

Maryland, by contrast, did not submit a single “shovel-ready” project and did not offer any matching funds. Out of its “wish-list” of $370 million in rail projects, the O’Malley administration received $60 million to prepare engineering plans for a new West Baltimore tunnel for Amtrak and MARC trains.

But there’s an important asterisk to this award – the tunnel money had previously been approved (but not yet appropriated) by Congress. Otherwise, the state got only $9.5 million in stimulus funds to plan improvements to the BWI Airport station.

– by MARK REUTTER