When former Gov. Parris Glendening (D) first publicized his support for the Purple Line during his tense 1998 re-election campaign, his Republican challenger, Ellen Sauerbrey, ran ads in Baltimore warning voters that Glendening wanted to spend billions of dollars for new subway service in Washington, D.C.
Former Gov. Bob Ehrlich (R), who replaced Glendening in 2003, tried to kill the east-west transit project linking Montgomery and Prince George’s counties – even as he was reversing Glendening’s decision to mothball the long-proposed Intercounty Connector highway.
On the national level, Republicans have generally been hostile to new transit lines with big price tags – for fiscal, philosophical and political reasons.
