Montgomery County’s top elected officials implored Maryland’s transportation secretary Thursday night to scale back the plan to add four lanes to Interstate 270 and the Capital Beltway — and to adopt a more conservative approach to financing the project.

They said the collapse of the Maryland Department of Transportation’s contract to build the Purple Line transit project illustrates the risks of government’s use of “public-private partnerships” on big-ticket projects.

“I think it is clear that the Purple Line ‘P3’ can only logically be described as a financial catastrophe,” said Del. Kumar P. Barve (D-Montgomery), chairman of the House Transportation and Environment Committee.

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