Every five years, Maryland updates its 20-year Maryland Transportation Plan (MTP) which guides statewide improvements across all means of transportation, including highways, roads, tunnels, bridges, rail, buses, water ports, airports, bike paths, and sidewalks. The plan includes goals and objectives, which then inform the annual budget and planning process. The most recent plan, developed in 2004, positions system preservation as its highest priority and the 2009 plan currently being developed is expected to do the same. Within the goal of system preservation (referred to as "efficiency" in the MTP) the two main objectives are to "extend the useful life of existing facilities and equipment" and "maximize the operational performance and capacity of existing systems".
The 2007 - 2012 Consolidated Transportation Program (CTP), Maryland's six-year capital investment program for transportation, reveals annual system preservation requirements ranging from $642 million to $778 million with the total over the six-year period equaling $4.2 billion. This represents 47 percent of the $9 billion in anticipated revenue over the period of the CTP. Thus, when combined with the financial and local political constraints described below, there leaves little possibility that Maryland will include adding capacity on the Beltway to its list of projects for the foreseeable future.