Broening Highway

Parts of Broening Highway in Southeast Baltimore will be subject to lane closures today and Sunday. Officials at the Department of Public Works said that one lane, between Avon Avenue and Authority Drive (adjacent to Interstate 695) will be closed each day and night. The other lane will remain open to traffic. Alternating northbound and southbound traffic will be directed by a flagger. Officials said drivers should consider using alternate routes.

A portion of Broening Highway will be closed this weekend for utility construction work and motorists are urged to use alternate routes, the city transportation department said. The closure to through traffic will begin at 7 p.m. Friday, between Holabird Avenue and Dunhill Road with detours in effect. The roadway will reopen at 5 a.m. Monday. Local traffic will be allowed access to area businesses. The $27.1 million project, which will conclude in fall 2014, includes new lighting and upgraded traffic signals, repaving and reconfiguring the Keith Avenue ramp to accommodate two-way traffic.

A portion of Broening Highway will be closed this weekend for utility construction work and motorists are urged to use alternate routes, the city transportation department said. The closure to through traffic will begin at 7 p.m. Friday, between Holabird Avenue and Dunhill Road with detours in effect. The roadway will reopen at 5 a.m. Monday. Local traffic will be allowed access to area businesses. The $27.1 million project, which will conclude in fall 2014, includes new lighting and upgraded traffic signals, repaving and reconfiguring the Keith Avenue ramp to accommodate two-way traffic.

As of 9 a.m. Tuesday, traffic was slow on the inner loop of the Baltimore Beltway approaching Eastern Boulevard, due to an accident. Accidents were slowing traffic on Holabird Avenue and Broening Highway: Route 152 at Pleasantville Road, and Old Taneytown Road at Tyrone Road. Repair work on a leaking 36-inch water main was causing some lane closures on northbound and southbound Greenmount Avenue between 33 r d and 35 t h streets, but cars are getting by. Some streets around the Washington Monument in the 600 block of N. Charles St. are beginning to have lane closures in preparation for this weekend's Baltimore Book Festival.

The City's department of public works crews are repairing a broken 16-inch water main near the truck entrance to the Dundalk Marine Terminal, closing a section of Broening Highway Thursday, a spokesman said. The main broke late Thursday morning and might take until midnight to repair, closing down the northbound lanes of the 2700 block of Broening, said department spokesman Kurt Kocher, in an e-mail. The southbound lanes are now carrying two-way traffic, he said, and the Port Authority has made arrangements to get their vehicles in and out. He said water would be shut off until about 4 p.m., affecting portions of the Marine Terminal.

Detroit failed yesterday to make the nearly 4,000 workers at the General Motors Corp. assembly plant in Southeast Baltimore feel like rushing out to buy a new car.But while there were no firm reassurances, the unofficial word is that the minivan plant on Broening Highway is safe, at least for the time being.GM Chairman Robert C. Stempel said six North American assembly plants would be closed over the next four years, but he didn't identify those on the hit list.Rodney A. Trump, president of Local 239 of the United Auto Workers union, said the Baltimore plant is scheduled to lose about 37 white-collar, salaried jobs as part of GM's corporate-wide cost cutting plan.

The 3,700 workers at the General Motors Corp. minivan assembly plant in East Baltimore are not expected to feel the brunt of the company's massive cost-cutting restructuring plan that will be announced next week."

EVEN AS General Motors workers nationwide contemplate a return to their jobs after a seven-week strike, the clock is ticking on GM's Broening Highway plant. Government and union officials soon must decide what price to pay to keep the automotive giant in Baltimore.At stake are 3,000 good-paying jobs and a significant slice of the region's economy. City, state and congressional officials had a similar challenge last year, when they worked tirelessly -- and gave up much -- to win a $300 million cold-rolling mill for Bethlehem Steel Corp.

General Motors Corp. Truck Group announced yesterday that it intends to keep open its van assembly plant on Broening Highway through at least 2001, promising another year of jobs to the plant's 2,800 workers.The company previously had said it would keep the plant -- the city's largest manufacturing employer -- open through next year, but decided to extend production because of a recent upturn in demand for the Chevy Astro and GMC Safari vans made at the plant."It's obviously a point of relief," said Charles R. Alfred, president of United Auto Workers Local 239, which represents the plant's workers.

General Motors Corp. has selected a depleted gravel quarry near Interstate 95 in White Marsh as the site of a new $250 million transmission manufacturing plant, government and real estate sources said yesterday.An announcement of Baltimore County's biggest economic development coup since credit card giant MBNA moved its regional operations to the county two years ago was expected to come from state and county officials today.Economic incentives, which have not been disclosed, were offered to land the project, government sources said.

Ellen C. Klages, a homemaker who earlier had worked in the registrar's office at the Johns Hopkins University, died July 21 of cancer at Gilchrist Hospice Care. The Kingsville resident was 92. Ellen Cook, the daughter of a Hochschild Kohn department store sales clerk and a homemaker, was born in Baltimore and raised on Lafayette Avenue near Broadway. After graduating in 1937 from the old Eastern High School on East North Avenue, Mrs. Klages worked at Morgan Millwork and then the old General Motors plant on Broening Highway.

A 16-inch water main break near the front truck entrance to the Dundalk Marine Terminal closed some lanes of Broening Highway Thursday. The northbound lanes in 2700 block of Broening Highway were closed and both directions of traffic were shifted to the southbound lanes, said Kurt Kocher, a city Public Works spokesman. Crews will likely work until after midnight to repair the break, which occurred late Thursday morning, he said. Portions of the Marine Terminal will not have water service while repairs are made, Kocher said.

The proposed purchase of a 3.1-acre parcel near the Baltimore city-county line would help the county move its plans forward for an estimated $3.3 million Heritage Trail from Dundalk to the Baltimore waterfront. The County Council is expected to vote at its legislative session Monday on a $1 million contract to buy the land at the intersection of Riverview and Ralls avenues in the city. James G. Robinson, the property owner, has accepted the county's offer for the land, now used as a truck depot and temporary parking for tractor trailers.

Carolyn Taylor, a retired General Motors worker, died of an apparent heart attack Saturday at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. She was 69 and lived in Northeast Baltimore. Born Carolyn Daveta Pitts in Baltimore and raised in East Baltimore, she was a 1961 graduate of Dunbar High School, where she was class salutatorian. She attended the old Baltimore City Community College and studied nursing. She worked as a home caregiver after high school. She then worked at the old Western Electric Co.'s Point Breeze Works.

Richard S. Corbin, a retired General Motors Corp. master electrician, died Monday of cancer at his Joppa home. He was 67. Mr. Corbin was born and raised in Framingham, Mass., where he graduated in 1960 from Framingham High School. He served in the Navy as an electrician from 1960 to 1964, aboard the carrier USS Ranger. After being discharged from the service, he went to work as an electrician at the General Motors plant in Framingham. In 1992, he was transferred to the old General Motors plant on Broening Highway, where he worked until retiring in 1999.