Maryland’s vision to use one of the nation’s biggest public-private partnerships to relieve D.C.-area traffic congestion faces serious jeopardy, as the private team picked to develop it quit the project on Thursday.
The team, led by Australian toll company Transurban, backed out amid uncertainty that Maryland’s new Gov. Wes Moore (D) supported the proposal and the unresolved — potentially costly — lawsuits over the project’s environmental implications.
“We are making a tough decision, but the right decision,” Amanda Baxter, a senior vice president for Transurban North America, said in an interview.
“We chose the path that protects the taxpayers and stakeholders, since we are walking away from the opportunity to deliver this for them,” she said.
The decision suspends progress on replacing the American Legion Bridge and relieving the congested Capital Beltway and Interstate 270 with high-occupancy toll lanes. It’s a potentially insurmountable setback to a $6 billion plan first announced in 2017 by Maryland’s previous governor, Republican Larry Hogan.
