Beltway

The State Highway Administration will close the ramp from southbound Charles Street to eastbound Interstate 695 beginning tonight as part of the replacement of a bridge over the Beltway. As of Friday morning, motorists approaching the Beltway from Lutherville will be diverted to York Road until fall. The ramp from northbound Charles Street to the eastbound Beltway will remain open. On Friday, motorists approaching the Charles Street interchange from Lutherville will be directed to a detour using Bellona Avenue and the York Road interchange.

As of 8:30 a.m. Thursday, traffic was slow on U.S. 50 westbound at the Capital Beltway, due to an accident involving six vehicles. According to the Maryland Transit Administration, light rail service is suspended between the Timonium and Hunt Valley stations due to construction work. A shuttle bus service is available instead. There are no other major delays reported on Baltimore area transit systems.

Let's say you live in what might be called the Inner Loop of the Baltimore metropolitan area — that is, the entire territory inside the Beltway. If you're an Inner Loopian, you probably have a sense of where the rich people live, where the poor people live, and where the shrinking numbers of in-between people generally live. And you know who's who, just from observation. Go shopping on York Road or Loch Raven Boulevard or out Route 40, at the city-county border, and you can sort it all out by observing what people buy (hamburger or steak)

With the clock ticking toward Thursday afternoon rush hour, state crews raced to right a tractor-trailer truck and clear the debris that closed all four lanes of the inner loop of Interstate 695 near U.S. 1. The truck was drained of fuel and hitched to a tow truck, and all lanes were open just 2 1/2 hours after the accident happened, the State Highway Administration said. The flat-bed truck, hauling pipes and lumber, tipped over and landed on the driver's side at 12:48 p.m., according to State Police spokesman Greg Shipley.

Construction on a stretch of Interstate 695 between Interstate 83 and Charles Street has been postponed until January because of the weekend's heavy snow, according to the State Highway Administration. Agency spokesman David Buck said the work could begin as early as Jan. 4 or 5, but for now highway workers will be dealing with snow and ice. The months-long construction project will require a temporary split of the lanes along the east-bound Inner Loop as workers replace concrete on the bridge over the light rail tracks.

It would have been fitting if the electronic message boards that dot Baltimore's Beltway were excused from their routine of flashing weather advisories or accident alerts, even for just half a day, to beam a tribute to John Benjamin Funk and Malcolm Howard Dill.Messrs. Funk and Dill, ages 87 and 94 respectively, passed away within days of one another recently. Although their names are recognizable to few Marylanders, the great achievement of their labors touches people here every day and had a profound effect on the shape of Central Maryland.

Late-night drivers should be forgiven for momentarily thinking they've hit extended rush hour along the Beltway near Charles Street. A little bit of traffic could turn into a big backup with a State Highway Administration project under way that will close westbound Interstate 695 at Charles starting at 11 p.m. Sundays through Thursdays. Closings and detours to install structural steel beams for a new bridge are expected to last about three weeks. They will be suspended on weekends.

A 48-year-old Abingdon woman was killed after she lost control of her car on a Beltway ramp near Parkville Sunday afternoon, Maryland State Police said. Danita Marie Hasselbarth of the 600 block of Angel Drive in Abingdon was pronounced dead by paramedics at the crash scene, according to State Police statement. Hasselbarth was steering her 1994 red Chevrolet Camaro onto the Harford Road ramp of the Beltway's inner loop about 5:15 p.m. when the car swerved onto a grassy area and then careened backward onto a concrete barrier, police said.

A flatbed tractor-trailer hauling steel overturned yesterday evening on a ramp from the Baltimore Beltway to Interstate 97, injuring the driver and spilling part of its load and some diesel fuel, authorities reported. The incident occurred about 6:20 p.m. as the driver was leaving the Beltway's inner loop. The crash ruptured one of the truck's two 50-gallon diesel fuel saddle tanks, said Division Chief John Scholz of the Anne Arundel County Fire Department. Scholz said about 20 gallons of fuel spilled, but was prevented from entering nearby Cabin Branch Creek by firefighters and HazMat crews.

A gust of wind sent the top of a large tree crashing onto the windshield of a car traveling yesterday on the Beltway in Baltimore County, state police said. The accident occurred about 1 p.m. on the inner loop near the Greenspring Avenue exit. Two women in the car, ages 81 and 63, were treated for minor injuries at area hospitals and released, police said. "It landed right on that car and stopped it dead in its tracks," said Jeremiah Fowler, 29, who was driving his pickup nearby. The National Weather Service recorded a wind gust of 46 mph at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport just before the accident.

Starting Friday evening, the Northwest Expressway — Interstate 795 — will be undergoing resurfacing between the Baltimore Beltway and Owings Mills Boulevard in Northwest Baltimore County, officials said. The road work is expected to continue until next fall, according to a statement Monday from the State Highway Administration. There will be single lane closures in both directions of the expressway between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. on weekdays and throughout the weekend. Double lane closures will largely take place during evening and overnight hours.

Attention, Baltimore commuters: The JFX has been reduced to two lanes in each direction. That means, come Monday morning, it's going to be extra-crowded on the expressway. To get to work on time, check out the directions below for alternate routes into the city. And leave early! The expressway's left lanes have been closed near 29th St. and Druid Lake Drive to permit repairs to damaged drainage pipes under the highway, said the Baltimore Department of Transportation, which expects the project to take as many as eight weeks.

Attention, Baltimore commuters: The JFX has been reduced to two lanes in each direction. That means, come Monday morning, it's going to be extra-crowded on the expressway. To get to work on time, check out the directions below for alternate routes into the city. And leave early! The expressway's left lanes have been closed near 29 t h St. and Druid Lake Drive to permit repairs to damaged drainage pipes under the highway, said the Baltimore Department of Transportation, which expects the project to take as many as eight weeks.

Maryland's top transportation priorities should include widening the Baltimore Beltway, making Route 295 six lanes near BWI Marshall Airport and building the city's Red Line light rail, a national transportation group said Wednesday. The recommendations were part of a 40-item wish list compiled by TRIP, a nonprofit research organization sponsored by the construction industry, insurance companies and unions. "These are game-changing projects," said Frank Moretti, TRIP's director of policy and research.

As of 4:30 p.m. there were several incidents slowing traffic on area roadways: There is a disabled vehicle on the inner loop of Interstate 695, the Baltimore Beltway, at Exit 21 to Maryland Route 129/Park Heights Avenue. A vehicle is on fire on southbound Interstate 95 at Exit 38, to Maryland Route 32, closing the right lane and shoulder. The vehicle is expected to be cleared shortly. Beginning at 7 p.m., crews will being closing travel lanes on the inner loop of the Baltimore Beltway in Catonsville as part of the State Highway Administration's replacement of the Wilkens Avenue overpass.

As of 4:30 p.m., there was a disabled vehicle on Interstate 83 at Exit 16, Timonium Road, that was slowing northbound traffic. The disabled vehicle is north of the Baltimore Beltway. There were no delays reported on Baltimore area transit systems.  For the most up-to-date traffic information,  visit The Baltimore Sun's traffic map .

An off-duty Baltimore police officer who witnesses say pulled a motorist out of his car at gunpoint during a rush-hour argument on the Beltway last week has been charged with assault, false imprisonment, reckless endangerment and a handgun violation.Officer Tarodd Shawndre Jacobs, 24, a city police officer for two years and assigned to Southwestern District, was charged in Baltimore County District Court after Andrew J. Paladino, a Towson accountant, filed a criminal complaint late Friday with a county District Court commissioner.

The State Highway Administration will spend $6.8 million to design an improved interchange at the Beltway and Charles Street -- a move it says will add traffic capacity and create a more attractive gateway to Lutherville. The project will include replacement of the 51-year-old Charles Street Bridge with a wider span that will accommodate the addition of lanes to the Beltway, according to the agency. The state also announced it will spend $4.3 million to continue widening the west side of the Beltway by adding a fourth outer-loop lane between Ingleside Avenue and Frederick Road.

After nearly five hours of halted traffic, an accident on the Baltimore Beltway was cleared shortly after 9 p.m. Friday, reopening three lanes on the outer loop, according to Maryland's Department of Transportation. The single-vehicle accident on Interstate 695, just north of the highway's intersection with Interstate 70, closed all but one outer loop lane around 4 p.m. Maryland State Police's Golden Ring Barrack said that there were no injuries. Traffic headed south toward Catonsville was slow for miles, at times traffic was backed up all the way from Interstate 70 to Towson.

The ramp from northbound I-83 to the inner loop of the Baltimore Beltway closed Thursday afternoon to reconstruct Wednesday's fatal accident that claimed the life of a 5-year-old boy but has reopened, authorities say. The accident occurred about 3 p.m. Wednesday when a sport utility vehicle rear-ended a sedan occupied by a man, his wife and their two children. A 9-year-old girl suffered a broken leg and remains hospitalized along her parents. Their son, Jake Owen, was killed in the crash.