State lawmakers once again carved out $1.5 million for Baltimore’s Greenway Trails Network months after the city fumbled the same amount away.

The allocation was part of a verbal floor amendment to the state’s capital budget introduced over the weekend that Del. Mark Edelson, a Baltimore Democrat, said took quite a bit of finagling.

He and the rest of the Baltimore delegation fought for it because they “believe this project deserves that level of priority,” Edelson told The Baltimore Banner.

The money will likely serve as the state’s portion in a mix of federal and local funds to purchase the property rights to a roughly 1.5-mile stretch of land in East Baltimore to help connect Herring Run Park and the Canton waterfront. The trail segment is to be developed in conjunction with the east-west Red Line light rail, which may share the same right-of-way.

It represents a small but mighty win for trail advocates in a year of spending cuts and tough choices, and a second chance for Baltimore to go get its land.

Planners and advocates have worked for years to chalk out and fill gaps in the 35-mile network of shared-use paths, which includes sections like the Jones Falls Trail in central Baltimore and the Gwynns Falls Trail from Dickeysville in West Baltimore through Leakin Park to Carroll Park. But efforts to fill the remaining gaps have gotten stuck in metaphorical mud in recent years.

State lawmakers made a similar carve-out for this four years ago, giving the city $1.5 million in a supplementary budget move that could be leveraged for a National Parks Service grant. With the combined funds, city officials could negotiate and purchase the right-of-way of abandoned train tracks from freight railroad Norfolk Southern just west of Greektown and Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center.

But after four years and no deal struck, the state took the money back.

Members of City Council were dumbfounded when they learned in February, and asked how a project with so much public support could have floundered for so long.

Edelson hopes this marks a new day.

“It is my hope and my expectation that city leadership treat this project with the same level of priority as our delegation in Annapolis has,” he said.