Bridge Project

State transportation officials have a word of advice for commuters and beachgoers who usually include the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel in their travel plans: Don't. Rush-hour and weekend delays of up to an hour are expected beginning June 20 as construction crews replace the concrete decking on the four-lane bridge just south of the Interstate 895 tunnel toll plaza that carries traffic over the CSX train tracks. "There will be eight weeks of continuous lane closures," said Cheryl Sparks of the Maryland Transportation Authority.

The gas tax increase Gov. Martin O'Malley signed into law Thursday will pay for weekend MARC service between Baltimore and D.C., roads and bridges throughout the state and construction on the Red and Purple lines to begin as soon as 2015. The first phase of the tax increase - 4 cents per gallon - will arrive in July, but officials already decided how to spend an $1.2 billion it will generate over the next six years. The tax is expected to increase at least three more times until July 2016, bringing the total tax increase to as much as 19.5 cents per gallon, according to state estimates released Thursday.  Here is the list of 10 projects officials announced immediately after the gas tax bill was signed:  $100 million to add weekend service to the MARC Penn line beginning this winter, two more round-trips on the Camden line during the week by next spring and new locomotives this summer.

The most disruptive phase of the project to rebuild the bridge south of the Harbor Tunnel toll plaza is expected to begin Saturday and continue for two weeks. The four-lane Interstate 895 bridge will be narrowed to one lane in each direction as crews repair the steel structure and replace the concrete surface. Maryland Transportation Authority officials are asking motorists to use alternate routes, especially during rush hours, to avoid traffic snarls. A state traffic analysis predicted that backups could stretch up to four miles at times during the two-week period.

Hurricane Sandy's pending arrival forced the State Highway Administration to postpone this weekend's attempt to replace one of two spans over the Baltimore-Washington Parkway at West Nursery Road. The $6 million project calls for swapping out two 60-year-old bridges that carry traffic to Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport and its business district with two new spans that were built in the highway median. A massive multiwheel transporter has been assembled for the heavy lifting.

One of the state's largest construction companies has been fined $140,330 by the Maryland Occupational Safety and Health Office for willfully exposing workers to dangerous levels of lead on a bridge repair project in Baltimore County.Whiting-Turner Contracting Co. was cited by MOSH for 20 violations of regulations dealing with health in the workplace while repairing the Paper Mill Road bridge over the city's Loch Raven Reservoir.At least a half-dozen employees working on the bridge last October were exposed to dangerous levels of lead, and three were seriously poisoned, said Marvin Shiflett, business manager for Iron Workers Local 16 (AFL-CIO)

NO ONE SHOULD be shocked that President Bush has effectively quashed the attempt by Maryland Democrats to impose pro-union work rules on the $2.2 billion Woodrow Wilson replacement bridge across the Potomac River. George W. Bush is, after all, a conservative Republican. He views such "project labor agreements" as tantamount to legalized extortion by unions -- they promise not to strike and are rewarded by government, which gives most of the work on the project to union workers. It's a bad bargain.

A Pennsylvania joint venture has bid almost $186 million to build a critical component of the new Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge - an offer that relieved Maryland transportation officials called an acceptable price to get the delayed project back on track. Unlike a round of bidding that drew one bid last year, yesterday's drew five proposals from joint ventures the centerpiece of the $2.4 billion project, the drawbridge and control tower. American Bridge Co., a union contractor based in Coraopolis, Pa., led the joint venture that submitted the lowest bid, giving it the opportunity to negotiate a contract with the State Highway Administration to perform the work.

OXON HILL - Like a lot of people, it seems, bald eagles enjoy watching construction work. Defying biologists' expectations, a pair of the threatened species has built a home here on the Maryland shore of the Potomac River, in the very midst of the construction of the new $2.5 billion Woodrow Wilson Bridge. The noise and commotion do not bother the birds. In fact, they seem to like it. The eagles spend their days watching hundreds of workers labor over the new bridge, thousands of cars and trucks zoom (or inch)

ORGANIZED labor's court victory regarding the new Woodrow Wilson Bridge could prove costly to Marylanders. The longer the unions fight the Bush administration, the longer it could take to build this $2.5 billion project. In the latest twist, a federal district judge threw out President Bush's executive order that had banned "project labor agreements" on the Wilson Bridge project. These accords impose union work rules and favor the hiring of union workers, in exchange for no-strike agreements.

Remember when the two-lane Winters Run Bridge in Joppa was rebuilt? If you missed the nine-month project and would like to see the construction in progress, don't worry. You can see it happen in living color.The construction project has been preserved on video tape and in photographs by William D. Rassa, a 72-year-old Joppa resident and a retired Conrail worker. On Feb. 23, he give an edited tape -- far less than the 20 hours or so that he filmed -- of the bridge construction to the Historical Society of Harford County.

A construction mishap led Saturday to prolonged closures of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway and the West Nursery Road business corridor near BWI, but state officials said the roads should reopen by rush hour Monday morning. The problem occurred as crews were carrying out a bridge replacement procedure that was being used for the first time in Maryland. To replace the two spans of the West Nursery Road overpass, they planned to wheel away the old bridges — built in 1948 — and roll new ones in. But they had to halt their work about 12:45 a.m. because the existing bridge deck shifted while they attempted to remove it, according to Valerie Burnette Edgar, spokeswoman for the State Highway Administration.

The most disruptive phase of the project to rebuild the bridge south of the Harbor Tunnel toll plaza is expected to begin Saturday and continue for two weeks. The four-lane Interstate 895 bridge will be narrowed to one lane in each direction as crews repair the steel structure and replace the concrete surface. Maryland Transportation Authority officials are asking motorists to use alternate routes, especially during rush hours, to avoid traffic snarls. A state traffic analysis predicted that backups could stretch up to four miles at times during the two-week period.

State transportation officials have a word of advice for commuters and beachgoers who usually include the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel in their travel plans: Don't. Rush-hour and weekend delays of up to an hour are expected beginning June 20 as construction crews replace the concrete decking on the four-lane bridge just south of the Interstate 895 tunnel toll plaza that carries traffic over the CSX train tracks. "There will be eight weeks of continuous lane closures," said Cheryl Sparks of the Maryland Transportation Authority.

The narrow footbridge that crosses U.S. 29 in Columbia opened three decades ago with the promise of connecting the town's commercial center with the residential communities to the east. Today, the underused structure is unlit, encircled in chain-link fence and often covered in graffiti - uninviting to residents looking for a convenient way to cross the five-lane expressway that divides a town planned by renowned developer James W. Rouse, who sought to emphasize connections between its communities.

Neil J. Pedersen, who led the State Highway Administration through the two biggest projects in its history, said Wednesday that he will step down at the end of the month to travel with his wife and explore other professional opportunities. The soft-spoken, well-respected Pedersen, 60, whose retirement after 81/2 years as state highway administrator and 29 years with the agency takes effect June 30, said the decision is personal and does not reflect any policy disagreements with the administration of Gov. Martin O'Malley.

At an event Friday morning that resembled a campaign stop, Gov. Martin O'Malley announced a bridge project in Baltimore County funded with federal stimulus dollars that is expected to support 200 jobs. O'Malley, a Democrat who is seeking re-election this fall, hailed the $25 million replacement of the interchange at Interstate 695 and Liberty Road as the largest stimulus transportation project in the state. U.S. Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin, Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger and Federal Highway Administrator Victor M. Mendez joined the governor, praising him for his quick use of stimulus money.

The Bush administration rejected yesterday Maryland's request that a pro-union labor agreement be required for construction of the Woodrow Wilson bridge project. The decision leaves Gov. Parris N. Glendening with a choice of ending his push for a "project labor agreement," or PLA, or pursuing a legal challenge that could lead to months of construction delays. "We're reviewing what the impact of the [Bush administration's] decision will be," a spokesman for Glendening said late yesterday.

The people in charge of replacing the Woodrow Wilson Bridge are spreading the news from New Jersey to Virginia: Stay away this weekend. Starting tonight, transportation officials will narrow Interstate 95 to one lane as it approaches the Potomac River in Maryland as they begin the process of switching southbound traffic from the old bridge to the new one. Those who insist on driving over the bridge could be in for a long wait. John R. Undeland, a spokesman for the $2.4 billion Woodrow Wilson Bridge Project, said some motorists spent up to three hours in a seven-mile backup during a similar closure last year.

The Dixon administration is expected to bring two contracts before the Board of Estimates today cementing its two-year-old accord with CSX under which the railroad will pay roughly three-quarters of the cost of replacing two of the city's most deteriorated bridges. After years of wrangling, the city and CSX reached agreement in principle in October 2007 on the formula for paying for replacement of the Fort Avenue and Sinclair Lane bridges. But it has taken two years to work out the final details.

Man killed by subway train 2 A 44-year-old man was struck and killed by a Maryland Transit Administration subway train Friday night as he stood on tracks that run through a tunnel in Baltimore County's Sudbrook Park community. The accident occurred about 9:50 p.m. Jawauna Greene, MTA spokeswoman, said the man, whose identity has not been released, died at the scene. She said the man was found in the southbound tunnel. Mondawmin shooting leaves man critical 3 A man was in "critical to grave" condition last night at Maryland Shock Trauma Center after being shot multiple times in the Mondawmin neighborhood of Baltimore, police reported.