Access Road

Alleviating the crowded and dangerous driving conditions on Route 3 in the Crofton area could result in bridges, high-occupancy-vehicle lanes, local access roads and relocating the road one mile to the west, a state highway official said Friday.These are some of the options being discussed by a committee of residents and officials from Anne Arundel and Prince George's counties. The group has begun what could be a three-year discussion on road improvements.Neil J. Pedersen, director of the office of planning for the State Highway Administration (SHA)

Owners of businesses along the 'Boomtown' strip of Route 175 in Odenton know their reputation as a seedy commercial thoroughfare still lingers, but when faced with what some residents see as improvements, the resounding response is to leave them alone.They don't want a grass median strip down the middle of Annapolis Boulevard, no matter how many turning lanes traverse it. They are leery of an access road and they fear more trees will make their stores and signs invisible to passing traffic.

MOUNT AIRY -- A proposal to extend West Ridgeville across Route 27 and create a four-way intersection was blasted by several residents at a special Town Council meeting Wednesday.If an access road to Route 27 is approved by the State Highway Administration, the plan could require closing part of East Ridgeville Boulevard to eliminate an intersection with Route 27, said Town Planner Teresa Bamberger. Another road would be built to link the proposed extension of West Ridgeville Boulevard to the end of East Ridgeville Boulevard.

Church's goal: Rebuilt homesThe Towson Unitarian Universalist Church is holding a conference in March to engage local religious organizations and other private sector institutions in a program of rehabilitating thousands of abandoned, boarded-up houses in Baltimore.The model for this project is Habitat for Humanity, an ecumenical Christian group that has remodeled old houses in the city since 1981.Under the Habitat model, a poor family works with Habitat volunteers in rebuilding the house that the family will own. The new owners pay an interest-free mortgage that helps finance rehabilitation of other houses for other families.

Follow the double yellow lines on one Edgemere street and you'll end up in front of a gas pump.That's because the street in eastern Baltimore County really isn't a street, even though it looks like a street and hundreds of motorists use it every day to get on and off Sparrows Point Boulevard."

After more than three years, the Rev. J. Wesley Potter ca finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.With the completion of the new Kingsway Christian Center, Potter will bring his congregation from its temporary home at Parkville Middle School to the new center on a tract highly visible from Interstate 95 and the Beltway in Parkville. The building is scheduled for completion in the fall.More than three years ago, the congregation, previously known as the Baltimore Pentecostal Holiness Church, sold its building at 6000 Loch Raven Blvd.

National Security Agency officials denied yesterday state claims that they are responsible for half the cost of a $60 million upgrade of a section of Route 32.State officials had said the NSA should payfor half the project, since it would be gaining a free access road off Route 32. But a NSA spokeswoman, noting the access road would be only a byproduct of construction and adds no cost to the project, saidthe agency had no intention of footing half the...

National Security Agency officials have sought the help of the county's State House delegation to solve a growing number of auto accidents in front of the top-secret listening post at Fort George G. Meade.NSA Policy Director Richard W. Gronet has asked the county's 18 state lawmakers to intervene with the state Department of Transportation to finish the expansion of Route 32 in front of the federal agency's headquarters.The State Highway Administration has expanded much of Route 32, once a country road, into a high-speed freeway linking Annapolis and Columbia.

NEAR DHAHRAN, Saudi Arabia -- Within an hour after the 5 a.m. call to Moslem prayer, the 400th Military Police Battalion camp stirs to the bark of a rowdy marching cadence as they perform their daily calisthenics.Among the members of the 400th who will spend Christmas here are Baltimore firefighters, police officers from Baltimore and Prince George's counties and Ocean City and other Marylanders who normally hold down all sorts of civilian jobs.They are National Guard members and reservists whose units were called up in November.

Construction is beginning on a $5.5 million extension and upgrade of Cromwell Boulevard that will provide access to the $600 million Port Covington development.Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke was to be joined today at a groundbreaking ceremony by representatives of CSX Realty Corp., which is a unit of CSX Corp., The Baltimore Sun Co., which is owned by Times Mirror Co., and Locke Insulators Inc.CSX is the developer of the 68-acre mixed-use project south of Interstate 95 and east of Hanover Street in South Baltimore.