Photo by Ray B. on Flickr.

It’s been a long, paradoxical, and unpredictable nine months for transit, housing, and environmental policy in Maryland since the state’s General Assembly last met, one filled with major announcements , heated zoning battles over transit-oriented development , really good primary election nights at the local level, and downright brutal general election nights at the national level , a combination of moments of reckoning years in the making and last-minute twists . The most improbable twist of all might be that for all the uncertainty affecting it nationally, urbanism in Maryland is in a surprisingly strong position locally heading into the heart of its legislative session.

Despite fears of a brutal budget crunch stemming from the state’s projected $2.5 billion deficit and a poorly received transportation draft budget , transportation funding, especially funds set aside for keeping the MTA (Maryland Transit Administration)’s transit fleets in a state of good repair fared surprisingly well in Governor Wes Moore’s initial budget. Combine that with a concerted push to address Maryland’s housing crisis and a newfound appetite in Annapolis for tackling longstanding energy and environmental issues and the stage has been set for the Old Line State to pass some fairly transformative pieces of urbanist legislation this year. Here are some of the biggest ones to watch out for, broken down by category except for the biggest one.

As of this writing, over 1,000 bills have been filed in the House of Delegates, and another 800 in the Senate, but only one is constitutionally required to be passed every year: the Budget Bill. It should go without saying that the vast majority of transportation and housing programs and indeed State funding for pretty much every subject quite literally stems from this one annual document, which is, unlike its federal counterpart, also constitutionally required to be balanced.

Between the end of federal COVID relief funds, declining State revenues, and the escalating turbulence on Pennsylvania Avenue, that’s a taller task than ever but one that Moore may have pulled off, thanks in part to a combination of fees, surcharges, and an ambitious proposal to overhaul Maryland’s tax code. That includes new tax brackets for its highest earners , and elements of a tax accounting method called “combined reporting.” The projected result? Enough money to preserve funding for local bus systems like Montgomery County’s Ride On and Baltimore City’s Charm City Circulator, continue planning for the Purple Line in Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties and the Red Line in Baltimore County and City, and to replace the Baltimore LightRailLink system’s badly outdated fleet. The funding will also allow the Moore administration to double down on investments in housing.

All of that is still highly dependent on what the Budget Bill looks like after the House of Delegates and the Senate are done amending it, so stay tuned for what promises to be an especially intense set of legislative debates.

As always, keep your eyes peeled for even more urbanism-related developments in Annapolis between now and the final day of the legislative session, April 8. If there’s one thing you can still predict in Maryland, it’s to expect the unexpected.

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Alex Holt is a New York state native, Maryland transplant, and freelance writer. He lives in Mt. Washington in Baltimore and enjoys geeking out about all things transit, sports, politics, and comics, not necessarily in that order. He was formerly GGWash’s Maryland Correspondent.