Dashing Baltimore’s hopes for a long-anticipated east-west light rail line to improve its transit network, Gov. Larry Hogan said Thursday that he will not build the $2.9 billion Red Line across the city.

“We are not opposed to public transportation. We are opposed to wasteful boondoggles,” the governor said. “The Red Line as currently proposed is not the best way to bring jobs and opportunity to the city.”

But Hogan, making his first public appearance since announcing Monday that he has cancer, offered mass-transit advocates a limited victory by giving conditional approval to construction of a slimmed-down version of the Purple Line light rail project in the Washington suburbs. He said the state would reduce its up-front share of construction costs from almost $700 million to $168 million, while requiring Prince George’s and Montgomery counties to shoulder more of the burden.

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