166 ADDRESSES AND STATE PAPERS

Neither crime nor blight nor pollution respects imaginary county
boundaries, and it is foolhardy to believe that these problems, left
unchecked, will not spread 40 short miles to the southwest.

Conversely, the alert and farsighted see the day when the Baltimore
and Washington metropolitan areas will be one—a great and single
megalopolis. With State assistance each area is starting to build a
rapid rail transit system at last, and these will be time consuming,
costly projects.

As we have seen, general plans and political charters rapidly become
obsolete. Therefore, we must accommodate in our planning future
growth as well as contemporary problems. It would be my hope that
both the Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority and the Balti-
more Metropolitan Transit Authority would consider as part of their
plans for these massive systems a future rapid rail line between the
Washington and Baltimore areas. A fast commuter service should be
a first step toward the mature realization on the part of both metropo-
polises that the era of rivalry and competition is past, the time for co-
operation and consolidation is at hand.

The State cannot properly criticize Montgomery County for having
had a Washington-oriented attitude in the past if it continuously over-
looks its own responsibility to this burgeoning region as a vital part
of the State of Maryland.

One of the innovations pledged by this administration has been a
suburban Washington office of the Governor to more effectively serve
an area of the State that holds 40 percent of our residents and contrib-
utes much in the way of talent and financial support. This office will
be established in the fiscal year beginning July 1.

But much more than that is needed. To effectively serve the area,
there should also be branch offices of the major State agencies—includ-
ing the Department of Motor Vehicles, the State Insurance Commis-
sioner, the State Banking Commissioner and other regulatory agencies.

This is an essential project for the future and one which we may
be developing very soon. I have directed the Task Force on Modern
Management, operating from my office, to look into the need for
broader State representation in this area, the amount of space neces-
sary to establish a State office complex to serve the two suburban coun-
ties of Montgomery and Prince George's, and the possibility and prac-
ticability of putting such a plan into effect.