Bridge

To get the bridge near her Locust Point home fixed, Karen Johns says she'll stand naked with a sign. No one wants it to come to that, but after nearly a decade of ignored letters, phone calls and so many appeals to politicians that she's lost count, it just might. "I'm just afraid the bridge is going to collapse one day," she says. "I've been trying to get someone to take care of this for 10 years. "I don't care how safe they tell me it is. I'm not in another world that I can't see what's right and what's wrong.

ISSUE: The driver of a Lincoln Navigator whose trailer came loose on the Bay Bridge in May was "solely at fault" for the deadly multivehicle crash that resulted, according to a police investigation, but prosecutors have decided that they have no grounds for charging him with any traffic offenses. Three Eastern Shore men died in the seven-vehicle collision May 10, which closed the westbound span of the bridge well into the night and backed up traffic for miles. A report released last week by the Maryland Transportation Authority Police concluded that there was no evidence that the driver of the Navigator, Stephen A. Burt of Rockville, had used a safety hitch pin to secure the single-axle trailer to his vehicle.

On January 11, 2007, VIRGINIA J. BRIDGE (nee Broessel) she was a 50 year member of the Epsilon Kappa Sorority, beloved wife of the late John M. Bridge; devoted step-mother of Steven A. Bridge and his wife Margaret; daughter of the late Frank and Lillie Broessel; sister of Lucille Thomas and Charles Broessel; dear aunt of Janet Wessell; also survived by 5 step-grandchildren, Karen, Steven, Michael, Richard and Margaret, 10 step-great-grandchildren and...

It was a sunny Saturday that began normally enough. It just didn't last. The first hint came as I was using a small portable car vacuum that plugs into the dashboard socket to suck up the dust and dirt from my wife Liz's car. To get the thing to work, I had to put my car key in the ignition and turn it to get electricity. So far so good. I finished, locked the car and realized that the key was still inside, draining juice from the battery. Then I realized I had locked the front door of the house behind me and Liz was in the shower.

When the bridge collapsed in Minneapolis, several people called me to see if I was OK, and I was in New York, standing in line at H&H Bagels at 80th and Broadway, which came as a disappointment to my friends, calling to commiserate about a tragedy, hoping for a good story ("I crossed that bridge 45 seconds before it went down; I felt it wobble"). But H&H is where I was, me and my St. Paul cell phone, waiting for cream cheese with scallions and three poppy-seed bagels. "I thought you were here," they said.

The State Highway Administration began work yesterday to rebuild a bridge that spans Interstate 70 in Frederick County.New Design Road -- between Route 914 and Guilford Drive -- will be closed for about two years so that construction crews can tear down an existing bridge and replace it with a four-lane span with a median and a sidewalk.The construction is part of an I-70/Interstate 270 interchange project.Motorists passing through the area can use Route 85 (Buckeystown Pike), Guilford Drive or Crestwood Drive.

WASHINGTON -- The United States and NATO officials, looking ahead to a postwar Kosovo, favor the creation of a United Nations-protected zone, policed by an international force with sizable Russian participation, officials said yesterday.While publicly vowing to press relentlessly ahead with their bombing campaign, Western allies are quietly exploring a solution to the crisis that would deprive Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic of control of Kosovo. At the same time, by offering Russia a major role, the allies hope to prevent a deepening rift between the West and Moscow, a long-standing ally of Serbia.

ABOUT A YEAR AGO, I was privileged to be among the band of loonies who staged a mock revolution and formed the fictitious Maritime Republic of Eastport (MRE).Our goal was to raise a big enough ruckus to make people wonder what the fun was all about so they would come and keep the local businesses going while the bridge connecting the Eastport peninsula to Annapolis proper was closed for repairs.Nobody could have anticipated the incredible response that weekend and the rest of the year. Most of the Eastport restaurants did better during the three weeks the bridge was closed than they had done the year before.

As cities and states around the country launch long-overdue bridge repair and replacement projects, shortages of steel and skilled workers threaten to set these programs back.The shortages are causing temporary delays on bridge programs nationwide, including such local projects as the new O'Donnell Street overpass in Baltimore. But as billions in new federal highway money wash through the economy, those delays could persist, some in the industry say."Employees are our biggest asset and our biggest problem," said Jim Pue, a principal of Wilton Corp.

Tara Collier, 18, has lived in the same West Baltimore house for 10 years, but she now fears she'll have trouble finding her way home.The Polytechnic Institute senior said she has taken the same route to the gym, to work, to school and everywhere else for her entire driving career. But because of a complete reconstruction of the Clifton Avenue Bridge, she will have to find new ways to get around.Demolition of the 72-year-old bridge, which is about 500 feet from the Collier home, began Monday, and will keep the road closed for 17 months.

The stories are Anne Arundel legend, passed down through generations - hair-raising reminders of life's cruelty that grow grislier with time. There was the panicked teenage mother in the 1820s, the one who threw her crying baby into the Patuxent River, then leaped in to drown herself. There were lynchings by the Klan, the hangings of horse thieves from the girders below, the young family in the 1940s that was swept over the rails by a speeding car, never to be seen alive again. Those brave or crazy enough to visit Governor's Bridge, a rusty, one-lane span on a lonely stretch between Davidsonville and Bowie near the Prince George's County line, still tell of the infant who cries late at night, the sobbing girl who pushes the baby carriage, the sudden drops in temperature.

The State Highway Administration closed one of the two bridges leading into Ocean City to truck traffic Wednesday afternoon after inspectors found deterioration of one of the girders that supports the structure. Highway Administrator Neil J. Pedersen said he ordered the emergency restrictions, which will bar vehicles heavier than 6,000 pounds from the Route 90 bridge, after receiving recommendations from staff and consulting engineers. He said the bridge remains safe for passenger vehicle traffic but that anything larger than a pickup truck would be diverted to the U.S. 50 bridge.

Motorists face a challenging time on the Bay Bridge as overnight closures force two-way operations on a single span for much of next week. On Tuesday night through Friday night, the westbound span will close at 10 p.m. and reopen the next morning. Tonight, it will close at 11 and reopen at 7 a.m. Sunday. That means two-way travel on the two-lane eastbound span - a daunting prospect when everyone on the bridge is awake and sober, and potentially deadly when they're not. Last August, during a night of two-way operations on the eastbound span, a young woman fell asleep while driving on the bridge and set off a chain of events that led to a tractor-trailer plunging off the bridge, killing the truck driver and leaving hundreds of motorists stranded on the bridge for much of that day. Meanwhile, the eastbound span will have closings of its own this Sunday night and Monday morning for repairs to the bridge wall.

The family of the truck driver who was killed last August when his tractor-trailer crashed through the side of the Bay Bridge filed a $7 million lawsuit Tuesday against the young woman whose vehicle was found to have crossed the center line, setting off the events that led to the fatal plunge. The widow, children and father of trucker John R. Short Sr. allege that Candy Lynn Baldwin, who was 19 at the time of the crash, had been drinking illegally before attempting to drive from Baltimore to the Eastern Shore the morning of Aug. 10. According to the suit filed in Queen Anne's County Circuit Court, the 1997 Chevrolet Camaro driven by Baldwin crossed the center line of the eastbound span, which at the time was in two-way operation.

Stand anywhere along Maryland's version of the big dig and there can be no doubt the Intercounty Connector is finally a reality after more than a half-century of angst. Huge earth-moving machines gouge red clay from what was once rolling hills and woods. Trucks pour rivers of concrete that will be bridges carrying thousands of vehicles between Montgomery and Prince George's counties. These are the obvious things that announce the coming of the 18.8-mile, $2.5 billion toll road with the official state designation of Route 200, better known as the ICC. However, it's the little stuff that has me walking and riding the route with Mike Baker, the project's environmental engineer.

For Asa Erickson, the Maryland Transportation Authority's proposal last week to charge a $1.50-a-month fee for an E-ZPass account is reason enough to drop the service. And he believes he's going to have a lot of company. "I'm not going to pay that fee," the 32-year-old northern Baltimore County resident said. "They're going to have a huge number of people dropping their accounts." Perhaps. But Maryland motorists are going to face two trends in the coming years: Toll roads are becoming more common, and toll booths are going extinct.

High winds across the Baltimore metropolitan region yesterday canceled New Year's Eve fireworks, caused power outages in thousands of homes, flipped a tractor-trailer on a major bridge and toppled branches that hindered the movement of the light rail. The National Weather Service issued a high-wind warning yesterday morning until 10 o'clock last night, cautioning that winds would top 40 mph, with gusts as high as 60 mph. At midnight, instead of fireworks, several confetti guns were fired at the Inner Harbor as Mayor Sheila Dixon and the crowd, bundled up against the cold, counted down to the new year.

Ann Wright Burdett, who worked in sales and was an avid bridge player and volunteer, died of lung cancer Wednesday at her home at Oak Crest Village in Parkville. She was 86 and previously lived in Annapolis. Ann Eugenia Adams was born and raised in Baltimore, and graduated as valedictorian from Western High School in 1939. During World War II she worked in a factory, but her outgoing personality led to a career in sales, her family said. She worked as a sales manager at World Book Encyclopedia and was later in sales at Monumental Life Insurance.

On Sept. 23, 1908, a portion of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad bridge span between Garrett Island and the Cecil shore collapsed just as the last of a freight train of loaded coal cars passed over. One span of 377 feet across the Susquehanna River at Havre de Grace and all the falsework supporting the bridge structure fell into the deep water. Twelve coal cars at the end of the train dropped into the river, but the locomotive had successfully crossed and remained intact. Only one person was injured.

Central Park at sea : Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. has announced that an area resembling New York's Central Park will be featured in the center of its Oasis of the Seas ship when it is delivered in late 2009 as the world's largest cruise vessel. Spanning the length of a football field, Central Park will include lush foliage, quiet walkways, restaurants, boutiques, an art gallery and a moving bar, the world's No. 2 cruise operator said. The area also will feature concerts and street performances, providing the feeling of an outdoor space on a 225,000-gross ton cruise ship that will carry 5,400 passengers and sail from Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Central Park will be lined with 254 balcony staterooms and feature five eateries and two bars.