Fact check: Would transportation bill kill 'every bridge and every road' in Maryland?

[elleng]

'Gov. Larry Hogan has made no secret of his disdain for a transportation scoring bill headed to his desk, but has his rhetoric left behind the facts?

In addition to emails and Facebook posts asserting the same thing, Hogan bluntly told reporters Thursday that this "terrible, terrible piece of legislation" threatens "every bridge and every road."

Here's the full context of that statement: "The scoring system that they are sending us, as we understand it – if we were to listen to it, which we won't – we would have to kill pretty much all the road projects in 22 of the 24 jurisdictions. Every bridge and every road."

The 18-page bill is certainly complicated, but it does not say that.

State law already has some detailed rules about the process by which the governor decides how to spend money on construction projects. The most recent plan will spend $15.7 billion between now and 2021. The legislation Hogan dislikes puts a lot more rules in place, but it still leaves the final decision on what to build up to the governor's transportation secretary.

The bill, headed to the governor for his promised veto Friday, requires Hogan to create a scoring system that rates each proposed road, bridge or transit project that costs more than $5 million and increases capacity. (Replacing a structurally deficient bridge, for example, would not have to go through the scoring process.)

But many of the projects Hogan announced with fanfare over the past year are the type of things that would be subject to a scoring process. The law spells out nine criteria on which each project would have to be judged. And if the administration doesn't pick the top project, it would have to explain why not.'>>>

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/politics/blog/bal-fact-check-would-transportation-bill-kill-every-bridge-and-every-road-20160331-story.html

[tularetom]

1. Look to me like the legislature wants to take road projects out of the pork barrel category

And take political favoritism out of project selection.

The governor understandably wants to retain control over what roads get built/improved/replaced and he doesn't want to be constrained by an objective rating system.

Too bad for him.