Transportation Planning

The Transportation Division in the Office of Planning and Zoning is responsible to coordinate bicycle and pedestrian, ridesharing, transit, and highway transportation services within the County.

There are more than 480,000 vehicles registered in Anne Arundel County and they are driven on approximately 4810 lane miles of roads that are maintained by the State Highway Administration (SHA), the City of Annapolis, the Maryland Transportation Authority (MdTA), and the Anne Arundel County Department of Public Works.

The Division is responsible for developing and maintaining the Transportation Plan.  The Transportation Plan is another important component of the General Development Plan, along with the Land Use Plan. These two components are interdependent and should be prepared collaboratively so that transportation services and infrastructure will support and promote the land use and development patterns desired.

The Division is the recipient of state ridesharing funds that are provided by the Maryland Transit Administration  (MTA) to promote ridesharing activities to reduce the number of vehicles on the highway. In this purpose, the Division provides ridesharing funds to the two transportation management associations (TMA), the BWI Business Partnership, Inc., and ARTMA, in the Annapolis area.

The Transportation Division has prepared the County's Transit Development Plan which is a five-phase document that identifies local bus transit needs and recommends services to meet those needs. The Division coordinates local bus transit services that are provided, currently, by Annapolis Transit and Central Maryland Regional Transit. The TDP is the foundation for the County's grant applications to the MT A for capital and operating funding for local bus service.

The Transportation Division provides guidance on behalf of the County in planning and engineering studies conducted by the State Highway Administration for improvement or new construction of the state-maintained roadway network. In a similar fashion, it provides planning assistance to the County's Department of Public Works for roadway, bicycle and pedestrian facilities that are owned and maintained by the County. It coordinates with the Development Division regarding road right-of-way, transit accessibility design, pedestrian and bicycle facilities and recommendations involving highway modifications resulting from the transportation adequate public facilities requirements.

The County is located within the Baltimore Metropolitan Area and, to meet Federal planning requirements, Anne Arundel County is a member of the Baltimore Regional Transportation Board (BRTB). The Transportation Division represents the County Executive on this board that is responsible to develop regional transportation plans to meet Federal planning and air quality requirements. On occasion, it does coordinate with the Metropolitan Washington Council of Government’s Transportation Planning Board on issues involving the Washington Metropolitan Area.