Light Rail service remains suspended Wednesday after the Maryland Transit Administration announced it would be shut down indefinitely for inspections and repairs. Meanwhile, MTA administrator Holly Arnold appeared before the Maryland Board of Public Works at a meeting. Comptroller Brooke Lierman asked her about several issues including the outage. “It is not a result of the budget actions in the past week. We were doing the overhaul and making sure we had been maintaining the system in a state of repair for the life of the vehicles.

Maryland Transportation Secretary Paul Wiedefeld and other officials have sounded the alarm this year over the long-term health of the well the state taps for funding transportation — as Marylanders hop in more electric and fuel-efficient vehicles over gas guzzlers, the state has brought in less revenue from the gas tax factored into the price at the pump. Last week, Wiedefeld announced his office would be cutting more than $3 billion worth of funding from the state transportation budget it sends to lawmakers for signature, citing declining revenues and increasing costs.

Approximately 9 million lead pipes carry drinking water across the country, according to estimates from the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Under a newly proposed rule, cities and other jurisdictions will be required to replace all service lines made out of the hazardous material within 10 years — but first, they have to find where they are. And that’s where you come in. Baltimore is among the cities asking homeowners to test their own pipes for lead and complete an online survey with their results, as it races to complete a required inventory of its pipes.

 

Christmas came early for hundreds of local families on Tuesday as volunteers from Toys for Tots rushed to fill shopping carts with books, board games and other donated items. Toys for Tots is a program of the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve. Tuesday marked the start of the Frederick County campaign’s three-day distribution event.

Baltimoreans seeking more bold and decisive action from city leaders got what they asked for Monday when a coalition of three disparate city entities united on a single issue for the first time in over 30 years. The Greater Baltimore Committee, joined by Mayor Brandon Scott’s administration and BUILD Baltimore, an interfaith community organizing group, released a “landmark” plan to remediate the city’s stock of vacant and abandoned housing, a conundrum it has faced for more than a generation.

The rail car that experienced an electrical fire recently, triggering the suspension of Baltimore’s entire light rail line last week, had received a scheduled rehabilitation prior to the incident, Maryland’s top transit official said Tuesday. Holly Arnold, the administrator of the Maryland Transit Administration, said the rail car flagged for safety reasons was among 49 that had gotten a so-called “midlife overhaul.”

The house at 1113 North Carrollton Ave. is like many you see traveling the veins of the city and moving away from the spine of Jones Falls, and it tells a story of Baltimore. The two-story brick rowhouse in Sandtown-Winchester is a few blocks away from the Billie Holiday Statue on Pennsylvania Avenue, once a thriving entertainment district for African American people, dubbed the “Harlem of Baltimore.”

Less than six months after being hired, the Allegany County health officer has resigned. County officials in July announced the hire of Dr. Junie Delizo. It was the first time in nearly nine years that the Allegany County’s health officer had a medical degree. On Tuesday, Allegany County Administrator Jason Bennett said state officials had provided information on the status of the health officer position.

Zum, the company contracted to operate school buses for the Howard County Public School System, said Tuesday evening that drivers have chosen to continue to work without union representation. “Today, Zum’s drivers and attendants elected to work directly with Zum,” a company spokesperson said. “We are grateful to our drivers and attendants, who are at the heart of what we do.

A lawsuit challenging the voting rights of student members of the Howard County Board of Education continued Friday, with oral arguments beginning in the United States Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond, Virginia. Both sides of the issue debated in court Friday whether Howard’s school board is in violation of the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause and the First Amendment’s free exercise clause in granting a student member voting rights.