After the second fatal car accident in less than three months on the same stretch of Route 32, local and state officials are considering a "short-term" plan to resurface and restripe the three-mile section of roadway near the Howard County-Carroll County line.
Dr. Brian Emery was killed late Thursday afternoon when his Acura was rear-ended as he tried to make a left turn from a northbound lane of Route 32 onto Amberwoods Way. Emery's car was sent into the southbound lanes, where it was hit by a pickup truck. The 49-year-old Sykesville physician was pronounced dead at the scene.
Within hours, Howard County Executive Ken Ulman interrupted a visit with family in Texas to call Gov. Martin O'Malley to ask that he free up money to pay for the project, which a State Highway Administration official said would cost between $1.5 million and $2 million.
"It was 10:30 at night, and I told him, 'If I'm calling this late, it must be important,' " Ulman said Friday.
Ulman said O'Malley told him he would talk with the state's Department of Transportation. Ulman learned subsequently that there was $1.4 million already budgeted for a future repaving of roads in Howard County, and he said he hoped the money could be targeted for that portion of Route 32.
Ulman said the latest fatality "had better be the impetus to make safety improvements on Route 32. It has to happen."
In a letter he sent to residents of the area, Ulman expressed his condolences and said the county "has already identified Route 32 as our top safety priority for the State Highway Administration."
SHA spokesman David Buck said the potential project would "more effectively direct motorists to a through lane or a turning lane" into the three Sykesville communities most affected by the increased traffic along the section of Route 32 between Route 99 and the Carroll County line.
"I believe if it was restriped with a dedicated left turn lane, Brian would be alive today," said Howard Blackman, a neighbor of Emery who, along with two other Sykesville residents, started a Web site titled Makeroute32safe.com after a crash in July killed a 13-year-old boy and his mother.
Blackman urges residents to attend Thursday's 7 p.m. meeting scheduled at the Howard County Board of Education office, where the county's annual transportation plan will be presented.
