Eight months after Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) killed a toll-road consulting contract that triggered concerns about potential conflicts of interest, Hogan and another top official voted to award the $90 million in work to a different team.
The decision Wednesday by the state Board of Public Works clears the way for a surge of new activity on Hogan’s multibillion-dollar plan to build toll lanes on Interstates 270 and 495.
The outside consultants will serve as something of an extension of the Maryland government, helping to hire and oversee other private firms that would actually design and build the toll lanes.
The project would be funded by imposing tolls that would shift according to driving conditions — creeping higher as congestion worsened, for example.
Critics have knocked the toll project as flawed, saying that officials should do more to increase mass-transit options and warning of the potential financial burden on the state and toll payers.
Click here to read the rest fo the article written by Michael Laris over at the Washington Post