Maryland’s attorney general asked an appellate court Friday to require a federal judge to decide a lawsuit blocking construction of the state’s planned Purple Line, saying court delays have “brought this project to the brink of cancellation.”
The petition for a “writ of mandamus” asks the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to require that U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon rule on a government motion to dismiss the 2014 lawsuit filed by Purple Line opponents.
If there is no ruling by June 1, the state won’t have enough money to continue pre-construction work, according to the petition filed by lawyers for Attorney General Brian E. Frosh (D). At that point, the petition says, the state “likely” would direct contractors to stop design and engineering work on the light-rail project.
Suspending that work, the filing says, would add significant costs and could result in the 16-mile project being canceled.
Click here to read the rest of the article written by Katherine Shaver over at the Washington Post