Bridge Road

UNITED NATIONS -- Two years after a strict embargo wa imposed on Iraq, the country has repaired almost all the 134 bridges cut by allied bombing, rebuilt hundreds of miles of damaged road and railway track, and restored ravaged electrical grids, communications networks and broadcast equipment.Just how Iraq has succeeded in repairing all this damage while bound by an import embargo and under intermittent threat of attack is a closely guarded secret.But experts assume that a combination of sanctions busting, improvisation and domestic manufacture of needed parts has allowed President Saddam Hussein to stabilize Iraq's economy at a low but sustainable level, making collapse unlikely.

The County Commissioners are dropping plans for a road that Union Bridge officials say would divert truck traffic from North Main Street and help fire and rescue crews get to the northern section of town during floods.Two of the three commissioners said last week that they would follow a county Planning Commission recommendation and remove New Ladiesburg Road from the county's capital budget. The mile-long road, which would extend from Route 75 opposite Stem Road to Quaker Hill Road had been budgeted at $1.1 million.

Craters and cracks mar a short stretch of the new Shepherds Mill Road near Union Bridge and the surface must be removed and replaced with new asphalt by the contractor, Carroll County officials said. The 1 1/4 -mile road opened to truck traffic in April, to the relief of Union Bridge officials. The $2.2 million stretch that connects to Route 75 was designed to draw heavy cement trucks from the Lehigh Cement Co. off the town's Main Street. "There are a few areas where the surface paving has failed," said Deborah A. Butler, acting chief of the bureau of engineering for the county Department of Public Works.

About 32 percent of Maryland's roads are in poor or mediocre condition, 29 percent of its bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete, and more than half of its urban freeways are congested, according to a civil engineering study released yesterday. The average Maryland driver spends an extra $273 a year on his or her vehicle as a result of driving on roads in need of repair, it said. State officials agree that Maryland's road system is in need of work, and they're trying to find more money to get it done.

A long-sought suspect in December's drug-related slaying of an Arnold high school senior was arrested Wednesday in New York City.Annapolis police have charged Eddie Rivers Jr., 23, of Brooklyn, with first-degree murder. He is being held in the Brooklyn Detention Center on weapons charges and is awaiting extradition.Police say the man was arrested using an alias, and a comparison of his fingerprints led police to positively identify him.Annapolis police spokesman Officer Dermott Hickey said Rivers is believed tobe the trigger man in the slaying of Darryll Downs, 18, of the 300 block of Ternwing Drive.

Two Laurel men were killed late Tuesday when the car in which they were passengers veered off Brock Bridge Road and slammed into a tree, Anne Arundel County police said. The victims were identified as Corey Eugene Gibson, 23, and Michael Joseph Stansbury Jr., 17. The driver, Vincent Merrill Dilworth Jr., 18, was in critical condition last night at Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore, where he was being treated for internal injuries. The men were friends who lived in Laurel, said police and family members.

Alleviating the crowded and dangerous driving conditions on Route 3 in the Crofton area could result in bridges, high-occupancy-vehicle lanes, local access roads and relocating the road one mile to the west, a state highway official said Friday.These are some of the options being discussed by a committee of residents and officials from Anne Arundel and Prince George's counties. The group has begun what could be a three-year discussion on road improvements.Neil J. Pedersen, director of the office of planning for the State Highway Administration (SHA)

The board of the Maryland Transportation Authority voted unanimously yesterday to double tolls at the Fort McHenry and Harbor tunnels and raise tolls on three other state roads to help pay for a major expansion of Interstate 95. If the plan wins final approval next month, as expected, tolls would increase from $1 to $2 each way at the tunnels and the Key Bridge. The fees would go from $4 to $5 on I-95 north of Baltimore in Cecil County and at the Thomas J. Hatem Memorial Bridge, which carries U.S. 40 over the Susquehanna River.

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton and other U.S. officials said yesterday that they would "spare no effort" to gain the release of the three U.S. soldiers who were seized while on patrol near the Macedonia-Yugoslavia border, and they vowed to continue the intensified bombing campaign against the Serbs. Yugoslavia television showed the three soldiers, wearing their camouflage uniforms and appearing bruised and battered. Officials in Belgrade said the soldiers would face trial as criminal invaders in a military proceeding today.

The tanker truck explosion that closed Interstate 95 yesterday afternoon forced thousands of commuters and long-distance travelers onto clogged alternate routes, where they crept through hourlong backups, missed afternoon flights and got lost on unfamiliar roads. Two southbound lanes of I-95 reopened at 7 p.m., and state highway workers were laboring through the night in a "marathon effort" to open the northbound side by this morning, officials said. After waiting for emergency workers and police investigators to finish their jobs, road crews had to clear fire-retardant foam before they could survey the damage to the highway.