By: Nicholas Sohr

State procurement law prevents the Maryland Transit Administration from disclosing proposal details, dollar figures or any other facets of bids to run a pair of MARC lines now operated by CSX Transportation Inc.

There’s no timetable set by MTA to get the deal to the Board of Public Works, where members of the public — come on, I know you’re all interested — will be able to see who wins as well as who else was in the running.

According to the state code — section 21.06.01.02 — “Before a procurement officer makes a recommendation for award of the contract, a procurement officer may not disclose the name of any person who has submitted a proposal.”

That may take awhile. The board approved a two-year, $118 million extension for CSX in June 2010, but CSX wants out of that business. Later that summer, the Department of Transportation decided to start the bidding process over and only received bids Monday.