Interchange

THE PROBLEM -- A State Highway Administration work yard off Liberty Road at the Baltimore Beltway interchange is unsightly. THE BACKSTORY -- A few years ago, the State Highway Administration began upgrades on the Liberty Road interchange of Interstate 695. Two fenced-in storage yards for equipment are on a grassy area within the loops of two entrance ramps and can clearly be seen from busy Liberty Road. Del. Emmett C. Burns Jr., a Baltimore County Democrat, wants the yards removed. He wrote to Maryland Transportation Secretary John D. Porcari and copied the letter to The Sun and three community newspapers.

Starting this weekend, motorists who travel on Dulaney Valley Road through Towson should be prepared to sit longer in traffic, as two loops of the cloverleaf interchange at the Beltway are snipped -- a $7 million project to make the intersection safer.The redesign of the interchange is the first of several projects that will eliminate loops in cloverleaf intersections in the continuing effort to improve heavily traveled Interstate 695."This weekend is the first major step to making the project happen," said State Highway Administration spokeswoman Valerie Burnette Edgar.

Planners will take a deeper look at Route 140 improvements such as underpasses and roundabouts that could eliminate half the stoplights for through traffic along the congested highway in Westminster.These intersection improvements would replace the $250 million Westminster bypass project, killed by Gov. Parris N. Glendening this year as promoting sprawl and contradicting his Smart Growth policy.The decision to go ahead with more planning was made last week by the Westminster Working Group.

Drivers might endure traffic jams on Interstate 695 this weekend while traffic patterns are altered at the Dulaney Valley Road interchange as part of a continuing project to make that section of the highway safer and reduce congestion.Between 7 p.m. Sunday and 5 a.m. Monday, the three lanes of the Beltway's outer loop will be shifted so the right shoulder becomes the right lane. The same will happen on the inner loop starting at 7 p.m. Monday and ending at 5 a.m. Tuesday.The lane shifts are part of the $7 million reconstruction of the Beltway/Dulaney Valley Road interchange and construction on the Dulaney Valley Road bridge.

Worried that a spurt of development and the opening of a major road next month will aggravate traffic problems around Owings Mills Town Center, Baltimore County officials are asking the state to build a new interchange on Interstate 795.Charles R. Olsen, the county's public works director, yesterday lobbied Gov. Parris N. Glendening after a Chamber of Commerce breakfast in Pikesville for the interchange at Pleasant Hill Road, north of the Owings Mills Boulevard...

GOV. PARRIS N. GLENDENING just bailed out Howard County Executive Charles I. Ecker, who'd like to have the governor's job himself. Mr. Glendening's decision to fund two major Howard County road projects effectively gets the executive and Republican nominee for governor off the hot seat for changing course on a highway interchange that east Columbia residents angrily insist Mr. Ecker had promised years ago.Residents were furious when Mr. Ecker changed his...

The division of Conrail routes between CSX and Norfolk Southern may help a small, Carroll County-based railroad that has had its nose pressed to the window, watching the giants split the spoils.Federal rail regulators have approved a plan to divide Conrail Corp.'s routes between CSX Corp. and Norfolk Southern Corp., ending 22 years of a federally created rail monopoly in the Northeast and leaving the East with two major railroads.The Surface Transportation Board's approval of the division of Conrail lines may indirectly help Paul D. Denton, president of Maryland Midland Railway Co., in his quest for access to lucrative rail interchanges in Baltimore and Hagerstown.

The division of Conrail routes between CSX and Norfolk Southern may help a small, Carroll County-based railroad that has had its nose pressed to the window, watching the giants split the spoils.Federal rail regulators have approved a plan to divide Conrail Corp.'s routes between CSX Corp. and Norfolk Southern Corp., ending 22 years of a federally created rail monopoly in the Northeast and leaving the eastern United States with two major railroads.The Surface Transportation Board's approval of the division of Conrail lines may indirectly help Paul D. Denton, president of Maryland Midland Railway Co., in his quest for access to lucrative rail interchanges in Baltimore and Hagerstown.

The decadelong overhaul of Baltimore-Washington Parkway should be finished in three years because of a speedup in federal funding announced yesterday.U.S. Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater said the Federal Highway Administration and the National Park Service will provide funds to finish rebuilding the Route 197 interchange, the remaining section of the project. The announcement was made at the interchange north of Greenbelt.Slater, who was joined by members of the Maryland congressional delegation and state officials, said the agencies' funding should save time and money on the reconstruction, which began in the late 1970s.

The replacement of a 67-year-old bridge on the border of Howard and Montgomery counties is one of several projects included in a state highway improvement plan.The draft, presented Thursday to Howard County officials, also includes funds for interchanges for three of the worst intersections in the county.The projects are:Construction of a bridge over the Patuxent River on Route 97 on the Howard and Montgomery border. Building will begin this fiscal year, and the cost of the project is $4.4 million.

The State Highway Administration said yesterday that it would install new signals at U.S. 29 to control traffic entering westbound Interstate 70 in Howard County, seeking to improve safety at an interchange that was the scene of a recent fatal crash. The highway agency said it would put up new signals on both directions of U.S. 29 where it meets I-70 in an unusual interchange configuration that allows northbound travelers to get on the westbound interstate from either a right-hand ramp or via a left-hand turn across southbound 29. The interchange was the site of a crash July 19 in which Andrew Noel, 19, was killed when the driver of a passenger vehicle made a left turn toward the interstate in front of Noel's southbound motorcycle.

Interstate 70 and U.S 29 in Ellicott City meet at one of the more puzzling interchanges around Baltimore. To many who live nearby, it looks like a death trap. Janet Tillman of the Mount Hebron area of Howard County wrote to call attention to the July 19 death of Andrew Noel, 19, of Ellicott City at the site. She noted that his mother, Valerie Noel, has begun a petition to close one of the entrances to westbound I-70. According to Tillman, the petition has 2,500 signatures, and the number is growing.

Fred Gottemoeller would like to see an overpass for buses only built alongside the existing pedestrian bridge over U.S. 29, just north of the Broken Land Parkway interchange. He said he and a colleague have been working on a proposal for such a project and will present their suggestions within a few weeks. At public input meetings this spring, General Growth Properties Inc. representatives discussed the possibility of a full, above-grade interchange near the southern end of Lake Kittamaqundi to carry vehicular traffic between Columbia Town Center and Oakland Mills.

A politically connected Maryland developer recently fined for making improper campaign contributions to the governor and Baltimore County executive owns buildings in Owings Mills near a major transportation project announced in March by those elected officials. Edward St. John, chief executive of St. John Properties Inc., and his company own a 36-acre business community that is being developed between the Owings Mills Boulevard and Franklin Boulevard exits off Interstate 795 in Baltimore County, according to a company news release.

Wesson H. Miller, a retired civil engineer who designed a major Jones Falls Expressway interchange, died of a heart attack Thursday at Greater Baltimore Medical Center. He was 82. Mr. Miller was born in Springfield, Mass., and raised in Baltimore's Hunting Ridge neighborhood. After graduating from Polytechnic Institute in 1944, he was drafted into the Army. He was in training when the war ended and was discharged in 1946. He earned a bachelor's degree in civil engineering from the University of Maryland in 1952, and began his career working in the bridge division of the District of Columbia.

The state has committed $28 million to help pay for a project that will add an interchange to Interstate 795 in Owings Mills, officials said yesterday. Gov. Martin O'Malley joined Baltimore County Executive James T. Smith Jr. for the announcement at the site of the future Dolfield Boulevard interchange. The state funding will include engineering, design and some construction. The county is contributing $625,000, officials said. A bridge and an extension of Dolfield Boulevard also are planned.

Lawmakers should seriously consider adding Frederick County to the locations where slot machine gambling would be allowed under a proposal for a state referendum being weighed by the General Assembly, several delegates suggested yesterday in a brief hearing on the matter. "This is a very popular part of the state that we've just kind of left alone," said Del. Frank S. Turner, a Howard County Democrat who chairs a House subcommittee that is considering a Senate bill on slots passed last week.

To the northeast of Baltimore, where Interstate 95 meets the Beltway amid a forest of construction cranes, something truly mind-boggling is taking shape. Here, the Maryland Transportation Authority is building a highway interchange to replace the 1960s-vintage connection between the two busy highways, where congestion has turned peak travel times into a commuter's nightmare. This is no ordinary interchange. Designed to accommodate new express toll lanes in both directions on I-95, the junction will be an intricate "spaghetti bowl" of lanes, ramps and soaring flyovers.

THE PROBLEM -- A State Highway Administration work yard off Liberty Road at the Baltimore Beltway interchange is unsightly. THE BACKSTORY -- A few years ago, the State Highway Administration began upgrades on the Liberty Road interchange of Interstate 695. Two fenced-in storage yards for equipment are on a grassy area within the loops of two entrance ramps and can clearly be seen from busy Liberty Road. Del. Emmett C. Burns Jr., a Baltimore County Democrat, wants the yards removed. He wrote to Maryland Transportation Secretary John D. Porcari and copied the letter to The Sun and three community newspapers.

A day after being convicted of murder and rape in the death of a woman he met online, former UMBC student John C. Gaumer elected yesterday to have a jury decide whether he should be sentenced to death or to life in prison. The capital sentencing hearing is scheduled to begin Monday in Baltimore County Circuit Court. Gaumer, 23, of Waldorf, was found guilty Thursday of two counts each of first-degree murder and first-degree rape in the Dec. 30, 2005, beating death and sexual assault of Josie P. Brown, a 27-year-old Hampden woman he had met a day earlier on MySpace.