City students, transportation advocates and lawmakers called for more funding for Baltimore’s bus network in Annapolis on Monday evening to improve regional public transit service.

“We’re here tonight to say that in a legislative session that we know is full of impossible budget choices, Baltimore’s transit riders cannot be left behind,” Baltimore City Council President Zeke Cohen told a cheering crowd of about 200.

The focus of the rally was the Maryland Transit Administration’s BMORE Bus plan, the agency’s long-term vision released in June for improving the bus network. With it, the MTA could increase the frequency of every bus route in the Baltimore region, as well as add express routes.

Many local lawmakers and leaders have jumped behind the plan. In September, state delegates, members of the City Council and Mayor Brandon Scott implored state transportation leaders to fund it.

However, many of them demurred after Gov. Wes Moore’s transportation budget was finalized last month without the additional money to accelerate the estimated 10-year timeline, meaning it could be a decade before Baltimore sees meaningful expansion of its most-used public transit option.

“Our students cannot wait another decade or more to get to school on time. Baltimoreans cannot wait another decade to access jobs and healthcare,” Cohen said.

The BMORE Bus plan has official endorsements from groups like the Central Maryland Transportation Alliance, the Baltimore Regional Transit Commission and the Fund for Education Excellence, which has highlighted how the plan, when implemented, would help Baltimore students who rely on the transit network get to school faster.

“A robust, well-funded transit system is not optional — it’s a core economic asset,” said Jennifer Vey, executive vice president and chief of strategy at the Greater Baltimore Committee.

Vey said she and others appreciate the stability in this year’s transportation budget that funds other key projects, but “stability is not the same as sufficiency.”

The plan’s $1.1 billion price tag would fund the construction of a new, fifth bus depot, the purchase of roughly 250 new buses, and the hiring of needed drivers and staff.

“It’s a great plan, it would in many ways transform transit in the Baltimore region,” Paul Sturm, chair of the Downtown Residents Advocacy Network and an organizer for Monday’s event, said in an interview ahead of the rally. “But a plan without funding has little value.”

The Maryland Department of Transportation’s capital budget, which is forecast in six-year increments but updated every year as part of the governor’s budget, does include what transportation officials have called a $14.5 million “down payment” for the plan — the money would go toward acquiring land for the future bus depot.

The next step would be to design the new bus facility, which the MTA estimates would cost about $60 million. Funding that effort now — though a fraction of the bus expansion plan’s cost — could speed up the overall timeline.

Del. Mark Edelson, a transit booster and member of the House Appropriations Committee in Annapolis, said in an interview before the rally that “everything is fighting to be considered a priority” in a tough budget year.

But, he added, he and his colleagues who represent Baltimore are “looking at every possible avenue, nook and cranny” for more money for the plan.

“We deserve better, we’ll keep fighting for better,” said Del. Robbyn Lewis, a member of the House Environment and Transportation Committee, and one of the only state delegates who doesn’t own a car.

“I am inspired by the relentless and faithful commitment by the people of Baltimore to demand better transit, to demand better of their elected officials, and I hear them,” she said.