Carroll County commissioners put the brakes on Task Force 29 on Tuesday after Commissioner Michael Zimmer acknowledged that his plan to attract federal dollars for county road projects wouldn?t work.
“I think it?s just time to put it to rest,” Zimmer said of the task force he spearheaded since its creation in January, when he first suggested that the county explore whether extending a federal routedesignation for all the Maryland highways that connect U.S. 29 in Howard County to U.S. 15 in Frederick County would bring federal dollars for road projects.
Md. Route 32, for example, would have been renamed U.S. 29-Md. 32 in the hopes of tapping into federal aid, but after further research, Zimmer and his task force learned it doesn?t work that way.
Maryland Transportation Secretary John Porcari told Zimmer that he wanted Carroll to follow state code that requires commissioners to submit their road construction priorities annually instead of bypassing the state for federal highway dollars.
“Redesignation of portions of Md. 32, Md. 26, Md. 97 and Md. 140 as U.S. 29 would not in any way change the eligibility of these routes to receive federal funding,” Porcari wrote in a letter to Zimmer.
Commissioner Julia Walsh Gouge on Tuesday echoed Porcari?s remarks.
“We put in our priorities as a county and that?s what they recognize,” she said. “Procedure is very much needed.”
Commissioners disbanded the task force after Zimmer presented the group?s final report.
Another suggestion of Zimmer?s ? to request congressional earmarking of the federal budget for local road projects ? also should be abandoned, according to the report.
“Given new leadership at [the Maryland Department of Transportation], it would be extremely bad timing to begin our relationship with the new [Gov. Martin O?Malley] administration by requesting an earmark,” the report says.
