When Bloomberg reported in 2019 that Southern Maryland residents endure the most grueling commutes in the nation, the news raised few eyebrows in the tri-county region. Workers in Charles, Calvert and St. Mary’s are accustomed to waking in the wee hours to begin a long slog up Routes 301 and 5 to reach job sites in Prince George’s, Washington, D.C. and Northern Virginia. Transportation experts have spent decades looking at the feasibility of building a transit line to serve Southern Maryland, but projects in other parts of the state always loomed larger in the eyes of policymakers.
