Transportation - Regional Authorities - Established

SB 935 establishes three regional transportation authorities for the Baltimore, Capital, and Southern Maryland regions, creating dedicated funding streams for transportation planning. It authorizes counties within these regions to impose specific sales tax surcharges, hotel surcharges, and transfer tax surcharges, with revenues directed into special "nonlapsing" transportation funds for each region. The bill also allows these authorities to issue bonds payable from regional revenues and requires interest earnings on the funds to be credited back to them. This directly affects counties in the designated regions by providing a structured way to fund local transportation projects through targeted tax collections.