NEWS CONFERENCE 193

Q. Governor, on the subject of roads, you have made a couple of
visits to Montgomery County and you have encountered a preoccupa-
tion by officialdom and lay residents in clearing up some of Montgom-
ery County's highway problems. What do you see that can be done to
try to alleviate these problems short of waiting until 1972, as Mr. Wolff
suggested?

A. I don't want to leave any misconceptions about how difficult the
solution to this particular problem is. It's terribly important to Mont-
gomery County, and yet it's so difficult to solve that I have no ready
answer available. Interstate 70S is a road that is carrying burdens that
were not conceived during its design and construction. The growth of
science-oriented industry along that corridor has been so astounding
that serious traffic problems have resulted. Mr. Wolff is presently en-
gaged in a study to try to devise some method of combating that situa-
tion. The only thing of any definiteness, that I can see at this point,
is that he is leaning toward utilization of what money we have left in
trouble spots, sort of a pinpoint approach to the most difficult prob-
lems we have. When you consider that the cost of constructing roads
is double since 1963—we spent twice as much since that time as we in-
tended we should—and that this is a general construction problem, I
think you see what problems the State Roads Commission has. The
money that was carried in the six-year needs program just isn't doing
the job for six years, and the needs study originally was a very modest
designation of what was required. So we're seriously lacking in money.
I don't know how we are going to solve it. We have many things
under study at the present time, and I hope to comment more on that
in future sessions. But it is a terribly difficult question.

Q. How high is the rank of Montgomery County in your priority?

A. Well, Montgomery County has a very high priority, obviously, be-
cause it's in the most rapidly growing part of our State. We would be
very foolish if we did not encourage the wonderful science-oriented
industry that's pouring in there, and get as much of it as we can, be-
cause that will help our tax base too. In this regard, let me parentheti-
cally state that I'm not too concerned about the testimony before the
Legislative Council, from a gentleman who is a representative of Balti-
more area industry, indicating that the tax program is scaring industry
out of Maryland. If he went over and looked at Fairchild Hiller and
some of these other new science-oriented industries in Baltimore Coun-
ty it would become perfectly obvious that we are in a very healthy state
of growth. I don't know the gentleman who wrote the letter to the