The areas around a handful of subway stations and one MARC station between Baltimore and Washington, D.C., are getting money for upgrades, the Maryland Department of Transportation announced Tuesday, as part of the state’s heightened focus on developing the areas around some transit stops into multi-use hubs.

The Odenton MARC station in Anne Arundel County is slated for $750,000 that will further preconstruction for a new parking garage, which planners say will free up roughly 12 acres of surface parking for housing and retail development.

In Baltimore, $250,000 will support planning for a redesign of Wabash Avenue between the West Cold Spring and Reisterstown Plaza Metro stations. Similar to Odenton, the state envisions turning most of the surface parking at the Reisterstown Plaza station into shops and homes. They want to transform Wabash Avenue, a bustling, multilane boulevard with few intersections, into something more pedestrian-friendly.

And in Montgomery County, another $250,000 will go toward preliminary design and community engagement for a series of big changes near the 13.9-acre North Bethesda Metro Station, which is along the Red Line in the northern Washington, D.C., suburb. The state already has committed more than $30 million to the site, which will be the future home of a new University of Maryland Institute for Health Computing focused on research in the artificial intelligence and biotech industries.

The announcement comes as Maryland is trying to double down on a bet that transit hubs can help turn the tide on climate and housing affordability issues.

Personal cars are the leading contributor to climate-warming emissions in the state, and Maryland is short tens of thousands of housing units based on current demand. So state leaders want to make it easier to build housing in places where people may not need to drive as much, like mass transit stations that could also host amenities such as grocery stores, shops and doctors’ offices within walking distance.

Last fall, they released a framework for the stations along the MARC Penn Line, highlighting Odenton as an easy first swing. That followed the vision plan for Reisterstown Plaza as Baltimore tries to catch up with the robust transit-oriented development that has cropped up around D.C. Metro stations.

Many Baltimore-area train stations were designed decades ago as park-and-ride hubs for commuters on the Light Rail and Metro lines, many in suburbs or less dense city neighborhoods. But commuter habits changed as service quality dipped and more people could work from home. So as the Maryland Transit Administration replaces its rolling stock and improves service, the state wants to bring in new riders by expanding the kinds of trips those lines are useful for.

During the General Assembly this year, a bill sponsored by the state transportation department to streamline such development projects within a quarter mile of train stations stalled out. Restrictive local zoning and “not-in-my-backyard”-style pushback have prevented or delayed some of these projects.