Southern Maryland Rapid Transit

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Southern Maryland Rapid Transit (SMRT) is a proposed transit line that would run along Maryland Route 5 and U.S. Route 301 between Washington, D.C., and Waldorf, Maryland. The plan would connect northwestern Southern Maryland with the Washington Metro at Branch Avenue, offering about 18.7 miles of travel with 13 stops, from White Plains in the south to Branch Avenue in the north. The route would travel 5.9 miles in Charles County along U.S. 301, with the rest in Prince George’s County, and would tie into the Branch Avenue Metro Station. The service could be bus rapid transit or light rail and would be operated by the Maryland Transit Administration.

Planning history and status: Work on SMRT has occurred since the 1990s. A 2004 guide and a 2010 preservation study helped shape the plan. In 2017, the Final Alternatives Report favored bus rapid transit and chosen alignments, though some local leaders prefer light rail for more capacity. The project is linked to development around Waldorf and the Brandywine Crossing area. SMRT has been studied five times from 1996 to 2017; in 1997 it ranked highly statewide but Governor Hogan vetoed it in 2017 based on different criteria. In 2020, Prince George’s County Council approved $27 million for a federal environmental review. In 2022, the federal government awarded $5 million to match state funds to move design, engineering, and the environmental process forward.