May 05, 1996|By Mary Gail Hare | Mary Gail Hare,SUN STAFF
At the urging of Carroll officials, the State Highway Administration has begun an $18,000 traffic study on the 7.5-mile segment of Route 32 from Interstate 70 to Route 26.
County Commissioner W. Benjamin Brown calls the widening "absolutely essential" to Carroll's transportation needs and its economic development.
"The county is pushing for an improved 32 as a major north-south corridor," he said. "We have met with [Howard County Executive Charles I.] Ecker, and he has agreed to support us for the project. Howard and Carroll are in sync."
With pressure from both counties, improvements to Route 32 could appear on the state's construction calendar within five years, Brown said.
A 1994 state traffic volume map, the latest available, estimated that 15,200 vehicles a day use Route 32 between I-70 in Howard County and Route 26 in Eldersburg.
"For a two-lane highway, that is in the higher range, but although traffic is busy on the road, it is not breaking down," said Steve R. McHenry, a regional planner with the state. "What the traffic count will answer is how much of that traffic is in peak periods."
In about two months, SHA will have the data to decide what is needed and what it would cost. Widening a 2.4-mile section of Route 32 near Columbia -- now the Patuxent Freeway -- cost $55 million.
"Four lanes cut 10 minutes off the commute from Sykesville to Columbia," said Matthew H. Cand-land, Sykesville town manager. "People will forget about using [Interstate] 695 to 70. They are going to love the four-lane segment of 32 and they will use it. But without improvements in Carroll County, there will be a bottleneck after they pass 70."
SHA is evaluating continuing the freeway from Clarksville to I-70, and four lanes on that segment are an option, McHenry said.
"The [Sykesville] traffic count will be a tool to decide interim and long-term improvements," said McHenry. "As development continues, the county recognizes 32 as the arterial route to 70."
On April 19, SHA planners toured the road with officials from the county and town.
"Eventually, 32 will be a dualized all the way to 70," said Steve Horn, county transportation planner. "Now it stops at 108 in Clarksville, but it will be a major corridor from 95 and it is knocking at Carroll's southern border. The ultimate goal is to dualize the highway to 26."
The county will soon hire a transportation consultant to work on its Freedom master plan. The work will include long-range traffic projections, recommendations for improvements and a model of Route 32 as a four-lane highway, Horn said.
"We want to take a comprehensive look at congestion, hot spots, and accident areas, and make what long-term recommendations can that will support our efforts to get 32 dualized," he said.
The SHA tour stopped for discussions at several intersections along the route. Sykesville Mayor Jonathan S. Herman predicted bumper-to-bumper traffic if 32 is four lanes everywhere but in Carroll County.
Although Sykesville's population is stable at about 3,000 people, nearby Eldersburg absorbs one-third of all county growth each year. Nearly 60 percent of all Carroll residents leave the county daily to travel to work.
"Here, 32 would be a great road if we were a rural community," said Candland, Sykesville's town manager. "But this area is not rural anymore. We need upgrades."
At peak hours, commuters in Sykesville have to slow to about 30 mph on the highway although the posted limit is 55 mph, he said.
"We have several accidents every year at the Sandosky Road and Springfield Avenue intersections," Candland said. "We have one of the heaviest intersections in the county at Routes 26 and 32."
About 22,000 cars a day use that intersection, which the county has rated as "approaching inadequate."
What the state does with the aging bridge over the Patapsco River at the Howard and Carroll line may be the clue to the future of the highway, Herman said.
Plans are set for replacing the aluminum girder bridge -- one of only two in the state. Herman has asked that the new bridge be four lanes.
"We have to plan for the future, not wait until the situation is critical," he said. "We cannot wait 20 years."
The bridge replacement will likely precede the highway widening, McHenry said.
"If two lanes will handle traffic for the foreseeable future, that is what the state will build," he said. "But a parallel bridge would be a possibility if there is a four-lane highway."
The county also has concerns about the bridge.
"We want the bridge to be four lanes or at least designed so expansion can be done with fairly minimal effort," Horn said. "Let's just design it for four lanes now."
The tour group discussed traffic counts, future residential development and Springfield Hospital as an economic development site.
The state has announced plans to sell 120 acres and a dozen vacant buildings at the hospital, which runs along Route 32. The town hopes to annex the property and develop it as an industrial zone.
"The improvements are imperative to make Springfield an attractive economic development site," said Herman.
Pub Date: 5/05/96
