Today Gov. Hogan finally
announced his decision on the Purple/Red Lines, axing the Red Line, but keeping the Purple Line. Hogan made the decision after apparently finding a way to cut state spending on it down to 133 million. The Purple Line's trains will now come every 7.5 minutes instead of every 6, but will still have every station. The savings come mostly from moving over the cost to MoCo and PG County, but Hogan has not said how much exactly they will have to pay.
The Red Line was
in Baltimore too expensive for Hogan, so he's giving away around 900 million in federal funding.
What's not too expensive for Hogan? MOAR ROADS! He's spending almost 2 billion on them, although not everyone will get to enjoy the crown jewel of Maryland's empire. Baltimore City will see exactly 0 dollars worth of improvements to roads in Baltimore. As the City Paper
pointed out, he tweeted out a map of where the road improvements would be that showed all of Maryland
except Baltimore. He literally left Baltimore off the map. To be fair to Hogan, he might think that Baltimore is a barren wasteland where people travel by water taxi or underground tunnels, so no need for roads. Or maybe he thinks that the people in the new youth prison he approved can pave the roads for free.
As Madaleno points out in the Post article, the roads will be paid for with funds from the increased gas tax, an increase that Hogan frequently called out during the campaign as an example of O'Malley's tyranny.
At least I'll get to drive on the
widest, smoothest roads in whole country, dammit, when I come back from college.
