Avenue Bridge

After a 10-month closure, the Fort Avenue bridge in Locust Point reopened Friday, according to city officials. Two lanes — one in each direction — are now open to public traffic, though construction continues at the bridge, officials said. There may be single lane closures because of that construction, in which case transportation personnel will control traffic flow across the bridge, city officials said. The $6 million project to replace the bridge, which crosses over railroad tracks owned by the CSX Corp., was jointly funded by CSX and the city, and first closed the bridge in August 2011.

After a 10-month closure, the Fort Avenue bridge in Locust Point reopened Friday, according to city officials. Two lanes — one in each direction — are now open to public traffic, though construction continues at the bridge, officials said. There may be single lane closures because of that construction, in which case transportation personnel will control traffic flow across the bridge, city officials said. The $6 million project to replace the bridge, which crosses over railroad tracks owned by the CSX Corp., was jointly funded by CSX and the city, and first closed the bridge in August 2011.

Road construction will force the closure of parts of northbound and southbound Interstate 97 between Route 3 (New Cut Road) and the Baltimore Beltway through Sunday.The construction will take place along I-97 in the vicinity of the Wellham Avenue bridge, about one-half mile north of Baltimore-Annapolis Boulevard. Work will run from 8 p.m. today to 6 a.m. tomorrow and continue from 8 p.m. Saturday to 6 a.m. Sunday.The closures are necessary to ensure safety during the installation of structural steel for the new Wellham Avenue bridge.

As of 9:30 a.m. Monday, the Fort Avenue Bridge in Locust Point has been closed to through traffic for a replacement project that will last until next spring. In Baltimore County, a 12-inch water main break near Cooks Lane and North Forest Park Avenue presented a possible road hazard, but no traffic lanes were closed. In Carroll County, emergency road work caused two northbound lanes of Route 97 to be closed north of Old Baltimore Road. There were no major delays to local mass transit systems.

BY 7 O'CLOCK on Saturday night, April 14, 1945, thousands of men, women and children were lined up, wherever they could find a perch, along the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks through Baltimore. They were waiting solemnly, some tearfully, to view the coffin of Franklin D. Roosevelt as his funeral train passed through the city on its way from Warm Springs, Ga., to Hyde Park, N.Y., where he would be buried. It was raining.The president had died April 12. Most Americans heard the news first over the radio at about 5:45 p.m. "Eastern War Time."

Replacement of the deteriorated King Avenue Bridge, which spans Interstate 95 north of Essex Community College, will begin Jan. 6. The bridge was built in 1966.King Avenue will be closed for the yearlong project, estimated to cost $2.5 million. Corman Construction Inc. will be the lead engineers.Detours will be set up southbound on Perry Hall Boulevard or on Gum Spring Road and westbound along King Avenue and Franklin Square Drive, Maryland Transportation Authority officials said.Pub Date: 12/23/96

WHAT IS IT ABOUT Gridlock Alley that keeps ticking people off?That narrow thoroughfare -- also known as the Smith Avenue bridge in Mount Washington -- used to be like the backwoods in its slow traffic pace as visitors moseyed in and out of the post office, church, ice rink and swim club on a strip of land in the Jones Falls.But since three upscale stores opened in an old mill there last year -- attracting health nuts, gardeners and caffeine addicts -- the place often resembles a parking lot as the trendy pilgrims wait to enter and exit.

A 2-inch-wide bolt closed a Baltimore County bridge yesterday. When an engineer hired by the Baltimore County government inspected a bridge in the Oella area, he noticed the bolt protruding from the structure. The problem looked serious enough to prompt county officials to temporarily close the bridge, a two-lane, 100-foot-long metal span on Westchester Avenue over a bicycle trail. "The bridge wasn't close to collapsing, but this was a critical piece in the bridge because of the kind of design it is," said David Fidler, a spokesman for the county's Department of Public Works.

Joppa Road bridge work to detour traffic Starting in early May, traffic will be rerouted from the Joppa Road bridge over Interstate 95 to Cowington Avenue while the Joppa bridge is rebuilt as part of the widening of the highway below, according to the Maryland Transportation Authority. The Joppa Road bridge will be demolished and rebuilt in the same location, said Cheryl Sparks, the authority's director of communications. A new Cowington Avenue bridge will be built just north of the existing bridge, she said.

In Baltimore City Structural problems lead to closing of Fort Avenue bridge Baltimore officials shut down the Fort Avenue bridge leading to Fort McHenry yesterday afternoon after a city public works engineer found deteriorating concrete in one of the structure's supports. The bridge, owned by CSX, will likely be closed for six months, said Robert H. Murrow, a spokesman for the Department of Public Works. CSX will make the repairs, he said. The city engineer found problems in one of the supports about 4 p.m., and officials immediately closed the bridge, Murrow said.

Work was due to begin this week on the construction of a new bridge over Bynum Run in Bel Air, linking North Avenue off Rock Spring Road with Henderson Lane in the Irwin's Choice community off Conowingo Road. In preparation for the bridge construction, the Harford County Department of Public Works announced that North Avenue from Creek Park Drive to Irwin Creek Drive will be closed for approximately 10 months. The road closure was supposed to occur as early as Tuesday; however, the closure had not been put in place as of Wednesday afternoon.

The problem: Barriers block lanes on a bridge over Interstate 95, though no construction seems to be under way. The back story: Nancy Skinner has spent about 60 years in eastern Baltimore County, and for at least 30 of those, traversed the Chesaco Avenue bridge between Overlea and Rosedale. For the past three years, traffic on the bridge has been restricted to one lane in both directions. "The traffic is not real badly impacted because there's still two lanes — one in each direction — moving," she said.

THE PROBLEM : Sections of a guard rail are missing from a Locust Point bridge. THE BACK STORY : Joggers and bikers who use the narrow walkway on the Fort Avenue bridge leading to Fort McHenry in Locust Point should keep moving when they pass the missing guard rails on the northern side. Two sections of the rail are missing there, on the end closest to Reynolds Avenue, leaving only a short wall between pedestrians on the narrow sidewalk and the plummet below. "It would be so, so easy for a child/teenager to fall over 40 feet below to the railroad track bed," wrote Bronson Sweeney, a runner who lives in the area, in an e-mailed response to a query from Watchdog.

David Roszel was on an evening walk along Lafayette Avenue in Bolton when he spotted me last Saturday night. In a subsequent conversation, he presented a version of the events that led to the Howard Street Bridge's construction in the late 1930s, a topic discussed in this column a few weeks ago. As a boy, he remembered his father awakening him and then watching the smoke and fire in the early morning of Jan. 13, 1933, as the 5th Regiment Armory burned....

A 2-inch-wide bolt closed a Baltimore County bridge yesterday. When an engineer hired by the Baltimore County government inspected a bridge in the Oella area, he noticed the bolt protruding from the structure. The problem looked serious enough to prompt county officials to temporarily close the bridge, a two-lane, 100-foot-long metal span on Westchester Avenue over a bicycle trail. "The bridge wasn't close to collapsing, but this was a critical piece in the bridge because of the kind of design it is," said David Fidler, a spokesman for the county's Department of Public Works.

After months of pressure and negotiations, railroad conglomerate CSX will pay three-quarters of the cost of replacing two of the city's most dangerous bridges, Baltimore officials announced yesterday. And no one's happier than the Locust Point grandmother known as "The Bridge Lady," who warned this summer that she was ready to stand naked with a sign to get something done about the crumbling bridge near her home. The move comes more than two months after the collapse of an interstate highway bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis sparked second-guessing nationwide over the safety of bridges spanning roads, waterways and railroad tracks.

No one bridges the gap between art and engineering like Stan Edmister, the country's first bridge maintenance artist.In 1990, his scheme for repainting Baltimore's Guilford Avenue bridge in five colors -- red, yellow, green, warm gray and chartreuse -- transformed a once-mundane stretch of Interstate 83 into a Jones Falls Fantasia.Last year he enlivened the Cold Spring Lane bridge over the expressway by painting the I-beams red-orange and installing TC iridescent foil strips on its fence posts.

Apprehension. Trembling. Alarm. There are locations in Baltimore that just plain scare me.I realized my penchant for geographic skittishness the other night. I was driving with a friend. We took a wrong turn because of the construction outside Pennsylvania Station and wound up on Falls Road under the North Avenue Bridge.The masonry underbelly of that noble span is nowhere to be at 11 at night. Do I fear the trolls who live under bridges? Yes, if the wind's blowing in the right direction. Do I cringe at the hobos who lurk by the railroad tracks?

Mayor Sheila Dixon and city and state lawmakers demanded yesterday that railroad conglomerate CSX fix its crumbling bridges in Baltimore before it's too late. Voicing support for a Locust Point grandmother who has been trying for nearly a decade to get a bridge near her home repaired, Dixon called the condition of the Fort Avenue bridge a "top priority," while state lawmakers appealed to the governor and Maryland's transportation secretary to throw their weight into the effort. CSX owns the Locust Point bridge that leads to Fort McHenry, as well as four other "structurally deficient" bridges in Baltimore.

Joppa Road bridge work to detour traffic Starting in early May, traffic will be rerouted from the Joppa Road bridge over Interstate 95 to Cowington Avenue while the Joppa bridge is rebuilt as part of the widening of the highway below, according to the Maryland Transportation Authority. The Joppa Road bridge will be demolished and rebuilt in the same location, said Cheryl Sparks, the authority's director of communications. A new Cowington Avenue bridge will be built just north of the existing bridge, she said.