Avenue Bridge

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.

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.

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

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.

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?

The city's smallest bus route is at the end of its line.The Mass Transit Administration recently announced plans to do away with the No. 30, a transit line that has endured scorn, low patronage and a tortuous route for 120 years.On a good run, 15 people might board the bus during its entire journey from the Penn Station area through West and Southwest Baltimore to a terminus near the Cross Street Market.Most people who ride it must know its convoluted comings and goings by heart.It seems to make a turn every third block.

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.

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."

Why does the Guilford Avenue Bridge glow like an iridescent bumper sticker?Every sunny afternoon, from about 4 p.m. to sunset, the west side of the newly refurbished bridge assumes a rainbow's hues.Structural members are bathed in a greenish shade of dancing, refracted light -- reds, yellows, oranges. The prismatic light show is most clearly visible from the neighboring Calvert Street Bridge, where evening rush-hour commuters and bus passengers wonder what's kicking up before their eyes.The same show lights up in the morning, on the Guilford bridge's east side, as the sun pops over the horizon.

New projectsMulberry Street (U.S. 40) (downtown Baltimore): Closed to traffic between Paca Street and St. Paul. Follow detours or use alternative routes.Baltimore Street between Calvert and Gay streets (downtown Baltimore): Lane restrictions for subway construction begin tomorrow and continue through Feb. 1. Restrictions range from one lane closed during rush hours to three lanes closed at night. Parking meters along Baltimore Street will be bagged.Timonium Road railroad crossing: Timonium Road between Green Spring Drive and Aylesbury Road closed to through traffic until 6 a.m. tomorrow for improvements related to light-rail construction.