Baltimore’s light rail, once at risk of losing a massive federal grant to replace its decrepit fleet of trains, will get the money it needs after all, said Maryland Transportation Secretary Paul Wiedefeld.

The state’s finalized six-year transportation spending plan, released Wednesday as part of Gov. Wes Moore’s budget that he’ll present to the General Assembly, includes previously deferred rehabilitation projects for the 32-year-old train line.

Wiedefeld said it’s thanks to about $420 million in newly projected state annual revenue from new fees and tax changes that’ll help fill a budget hole. Funding for cities and counties to repave and repair local roads as well as operate their own public transit routes, such as the Charm City Circulator, also made the cut.

The new and adjusted fees include a 75-cent per transaction hit on food and retail delivery services (think Amazon or Uber Eats), repealing tax allowances on trading in a vehicle when buying a car over $15,000 and raising vehicle emissions inspection costs for the first time since 1997. The gas tax, which has fueled transportation spending in the past, “isn’t the future,” Wiedefeld said, and the state is continuing to discern new ways to help supplement it.

It all brings the Consolidated Transportation Program, the six-year spending blueprint for the department that is updated each year, to $21.2 billion, up roughly 5% from last year’s total. The program covers capital projects ranging from replacing buses and trains to repaving interstates and upgrading baggage handling at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport.

Inflation on construction materials and wavering revenues have caused a second straight year of belt tightening for the department, just one piece of a larger state budget shortfall. Though the department will avoid more significant cuts it proposed last September, transportation needs throughout the state will still outpace the available resources.

Officials prioritized safety and economic growth in deciding which projects made the cut, Wiedefeld told reporters Tuesday, including projects that will “protect investments” made in the road and transit network.

“That’s really what we’re trying to do: What are the types of projects that we can do that support the economic agenda of the state? And particularly the safety and the disinvestment — basically correcting some of that disinvestment that has occurred over the years,” Wiedefeld said.

In September, Wiedefeld’s team released a draft budget that would have prevented the Maryland Transit Administration from meeting its minimum spending requirement for “state of good repair” — heavy maintenance and rehab work — as set by the state legislature. Such work ensures that Baltimore’s buses, trains and stations all function as they should.

The finalized budget will allow them to meet that target, Wiedefeld said. That includes work on Baltimore’s beloved yet beleaguered lone light rail line.

“We need to, in effect, rebuild the entire system, from vehicles to systems to rail to stations, because the new cars would not even work at those stations,” Wiedefeld said.

Officials announced a $213 million federal grant last February that the Maryland Transit Administration would put toward brand new rail cars, a needed win after a multiweek shutdown at the end of 2023 revealed chronic issues with the light rail fleet.

But in October, MTA Administrator Holly Arnold said the draft six-year budget was roughly $380 million short of covering a series of modernization projects to allow new railcars to operate smoothly. If they couldn’t find the money, they’d be at risk of losing the federal grant, she said.

Like on Baltimore’s Metro, which will debut new railcars in 2025 for the first time since the line opened more than 40 years ago, replacing the fleet won’t be a silver bullet for every single issue. But modern railcars will drastically improve reliability in the coming years at a time when officials hope more people will opt for public transit instead of driving as a way to lighten the state’s climate footprint.

Though the list of expansion projects in this year’s budget is shorter than many advocates would hope for, the focus on preservation should help the department chip away at its large backlog of needed rehab and maintenance work.

That would in turn better position the state for pursuing federal money to help build new infrastructure like the Red Line, though the proposed east-west light rail faces an uncertain future as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office. The Red Line’s lead engineer has quit since the election in November, and the MTA is currently seeking her replacement.

The finalized budget also revives some State Highway Administration road resurfacing and rehab projects that had been deferred in the draft budget, including work on MD 97 in Montgomery County and safety projects on Interstate 81 and US 15 in the western part of the state.

Local officials, tasked with submitting projects for consideration each year, have called the process for how the budget gets made something of a black box. That could change under proposed HB 20, which, if passed, would help streamline parts of the process and provide more transparency in how projects get scored and ultimately prioritized.