After seeing the draft version of Gov. Wes Moore’s transportation budget, Baltimore lawmakers and advocates asked for one major tweak: fast-track the expansion of the city’s bus fleet, the crux of a plan to improve service on the city’s most-used public transit option.

At a hearing in September, state officials said the Bmore Bus plan would get a “down payment” in the form of roughly $14.5 million. Then, one after one, a coalition of Baltimore leaders took the microphone and implored them to do more.

But, for now, they aren’t getting their wish.

The final version of the Consolidated Transportation Program, a six-year capital spending vision updated as part of the governor’s budget each year and released Wednesday, is largely unchanged from its draft version.

It has plenty for the Baltimore region to get excited about in the coming years: It kick-starts a total reboot of the Light Rail system, completes the replacement of the Baltimore subway trains, and commits more money than ever before to road safety projects. At $22.1 billion over six years, Moore’s transportation budget is the largest in the state’s history.

But it leaves out perhaps the most notable request from Baltimore lawmakers this year, meaning that major improvements to the bus network could still be a decade away.

“We have a bus system that, quite frankly, needs to be more robust and more reliable,” Del. Stephanie Smith said, “so it’s disappointing that despite clear advocacy from our Mayor, Council and City delegation around the importance of ensuring that our neighbors can get to work, school, doctor and every other obligation in a more dignified and timely manner, we have not seen in this version of the budget the investments we would like to see in the BMORE Bus plan.” Smith, a Baltimore Democrat, was part of the September advocacy push.

“We have to think about this investment as not something that’s just nice to do, but a critical piece of economic infrastructure,” she added.

Baltimore City Councilman Ryan Dorsey, who chairs the city’s Land Use and Transportation Committee, said that “properly funding Baltimore’s transportation needs is fundamental to the promises Gov. Moore made about prioritizing Baltimore in the state’s future.”

“It’s disappointing that even in an election year we’re not seeing that promise upheld, and so I sincerely hope that the state legislature takes seriously their need to correct this budget priority,” Dorsey said.

In an emailed statement, a spokesperson for Mayor Brandon Scott wrote, “We know that Governor Moore is committed to both improving transit options and investing in Baltimore’s future; that’s why the state’s budget makes significant commitments to the city. Mayor Scott will continue advocating for expanded transit access and equitable transit investments for Baltimore, including for fully funding the BMORE BUS Plan.”

Council President Zeke Cohen’s office declined to comment for this story.

The bus network is the workhorse of Baltimore’s transit network, accounting for most of the riders on a network that also includes the MARC train, Light Rail, Mobility paratransit service and more. Tens of thousands of residents rely on Maryland Transit Administration buses to get to school, go to work or run errands every day.

The $14.5 million programmed for fiscal years 2028 and 2029 will go toward real estate acquisition for a future bus depot, which many have described as the key to a better regional bus network. There’s no money programmed for planning or construction of the building itself.

The MTA’s four current depots are at capacity, agency officials have said, and putting more buses on the road would require more space for storage and maintenance.

The Bmore Bus plan, which also includes the purchase of about 250 new vehicles and hiring drivers and staff, has an overall price tag of about $1.1 billion and would take years to implement.

But advocates have stressed that the state doesn’t need to fund it all at once. Even a relatively small increase in the next couple years, they say, could help fast-track the plan while buying time to work out a larger funding strategy.

Brian O’Malley, president and CEO for the Central Maryland Transportation Alliance, an advocacy and policy research organization, said the state has the money to fund the bus plan but is simply choosing not to. He noted that state lawmakers raised revenue through tax and fee increases the past two years, but that it’s been decades since the MTA has expanded its network.

“We’re not getting good outcomes from all this spending,” said Eric Norton, policy director at the CMTA, which recently released a report card for the region’s transportation network. “So the first thing to do would be to look at the mix of projects we’re spending our money on and reprioritize so that we get the outcomes we want from the money we do have first.”

The final version of the six-year budget has a roughly $600 million bump from the draft version, largely due to a rollover from the last fiscal year and additional leveraging of federal funds, according to Maryland Department of Transportation officials.

It also moves up certain allocations for the American Legion Memorial Bridge to more immediate fiscal years. Moore committed to accelerating the replacement of the Capital Beltway bridge in Montgomery County during a recent meeting with U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. The bridge connects Virginia and Maryland.

Smith stressed that the legislative session is still just getting underway, and that there’s still a possibility for additional Bmore Bus funding. “The budget’s not done until the budget’s done,” she said.