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Slow To Create Transit Safety Agency, Maryland Loses Federal Funds

February 13th, 2017 by WCBC Radio

The federal government announced Friday that it will withhold millions in transportation funding from Maryland.

Maryland, together with Virginia and Washington, D.C., missed a deadline Thursday to create a new safety agency to oversee the Washington-area Metro rail system, despite agreeing more than seven years ago that one was necessary.

A year ago, frustrated with the delay in the face of deadly accidents, the Federal Transit Administration gave the states and District of Columbia until Feb. 9 to pass identical legislation creating the new safety agency or face losing 5 percent of the federal money each receives for urban transit projects.

The jurisdictions did not meet the deadline to have the safety agency up and running. The D.C. Council passed legislation to create it, but Maryland and Virginia have not.

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