Interstate

An unidentified man was fatally struck by a car on the Baltimore Beltway Thursday night, Maryland State Police said. The man was walking at the inner loop of I-695 near the Interstate 95 exchange at about 10:10 p.m. when he was struck by a car, according to police. Police said the driver stopped after hitting the victim. Police had no further details about the incident. Sign up for Baltimore Sun local news text alerts

Multiple projects to repair area roads are scheduled to begin next week and cause lane closures along stretches of Interstates 95 and 83, Route 32 and Loch Raven Boulevard. Interstate 95: The Maryland Transportation Authority will begin a three-month project Sunday to install new steel expansion joints and replace portions of the concrete deck of the southbound Interstate 95 bridge over Desoto Road. Between one and three lanes of I-95 south will be closed, as will the Washington Boulevard entrance ramp, between 7:30 p.m. and 5:30 a.m. Sunday through Thursday and between 9 p.m. and 9 a.m. Friday through Saturday.

Baltimore police have identified a woman who died in a motorcycle crash Sunday night on Interstate 83. Sheryl Anne Robinson, 40, lost control of her motorcycle south of Penn Station and hit the roadway's right wall about 5:35 p.m., a police spokesman said Sunday. The roadway was closed from Fayette Street to Penn Station for about four hours during an inquiry, he said. - Liz F. Kay

Traffic backed up on Interstate 95 northbound just past the Hanover Street exit on Thursday after a truck spilled about 50 gallons of gasoline on the roadway, a city fire spokesman said. The spill caused the two right lanes of the interstate to be closed, said a spokesman with the Maryland Transportation Authority, which maintains the section of the interstate where the spill occurred. City fire personnel responded to the spill after receiving a call at about 11:45 a.m., said Chief Kevin Cartwright, the fire spokesman.

Fallen tree branches were blocking the right lane on southbound Interstate 83 just past Cold Spring Lane, according to Baltimore police. Traffic was being diverted into other lanes due to the debris.

Traffic backed up on Interstate 95 northbound just past the Hanover Street exit on Thursday after a truck spilled about 50 gallons of gasoline on the roadway, a city fire spokesman said. The spill caused the two right lanes of the interstate to be closed, said a spokesman with the Maryland Transportation Authority, which maintains the section of the interstate where the spill occurred. City fire personnel responded to the spill after receiving a call at about 11:45 a.m., said Chief Kevin Cartwright, the fire spokesman.

"Interstate," by Stephen Dixon. New York: Henry Holt and Company. 374 pages. $25Shortly after you read this, you're probably going to hear that Stephen Dixon's remarkable new novel "Interstate" is "experimental" in form, and this will probably put you off, as it should, since an investment of $25 and several hours worth of serious reading time entitles you to something more than an experiment. You shouldn't be put off; "Interstate" is not experimental but a work that reads as if Mr. Dixon had used such radical techniques his entire literary (this is 17th book)

Two lanes of northbound Interstate 95 have reopened in Harford County while crews clean up a tractor-trailer crash early Tuesday morning that injured one driver, according to Maryland State Police. The crash of two tractor-trailers was reported at about 2:30 a.m. about two miles north of the Churchville Road exit, state police said. One driver was taken to the Maryland Shock Trauma Center in serious but stable condition. I-95 was shut down at 3 a.m. Northbound drivers were directed onto Route 40 via exit 80 until about 8 a.m., police said.

Multiple projects to repair area roads are scheduled to begin next week and cause lane closures along stretches of Interstates 95 and 83, Route 32 and Loch Raven Boulevard. Interstate 95: The Maryland Transportation Authority will begin a three-month project Sunday to install new steel expansion joints and replace portions of the concrete deck of the southbound Interstate 95 bridge over Desoto Road. Between one and three lanes of I-95 south will be closed, as will the Washington Boulevard entrance ramp, between 7:30 p.m. and 5:30 a.m. Sunday through Thursday and between 9 p.m. and 9 a.m. Friday through Saturday.

Traffic going south on Interstate 95 to Virginia should use Interstate 495 West, towardSilver Spring, because portions of Interstate 495 East are closed due to flooding. Drivers should plan for extra travel time for the alternate route, the Maryland State Highway Administration said in a Thursday-evening statement. All lanes on Interstate 495 at Telegraph Road and the Woodrow Wilson Bridge are closed because of standing water. Detours are set up on the Maryland side of the bridge for travelers who use Interstate 495 East.

As of 8:15 a.m., an overturned tanker is causing delays on the inner loop of Interstate 695 at Interstate 70. One of the three lanes on the inner loop is shut down, as well as the right shoulder. There are no major delays on Baltimore area transit systems at this time.

A former Glen Burnie man who went on an interstate bank-robbing spree last year was sentenced to more than 13 years in prison by a U.S. District Court on Monday. Allen Densmore, 56, robbed the Severn Savings Bank on Crain Highway in Glen Burnie of $2,300 on Feb. 3, 2011, after providing the teller a demand note and a bag, federal prosecutors said. After fleeing Maryland in a stolen vehicle, Densmore went on to rob banks in Wisconsin, South Dakota and Iowa, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Police pursued a motorist at speeds reaching more than 100 mph Wednesday afternoon after authorities said the driver took off from a routine traffic stop on I-95 in northern Maryland. Police said they had to puncture the car's tires with a spike stick put across a road to force the driver to stop. Police charged Tyree S. Jordan, 25, of the 2800 block of Pebble Beach Drive in Elkton, with numerous traffic offenses, resisting arrest, assaulting a trooper and possession of marijuana and heroin.

They gathered before dawn in a hotel parking lot, determined to prove themselves right. A former state senator. The one-time leader of Maryland's most populous county. Several local business owners. Would the Intercounty Connector, Maryland's most expensive highway, be everything they had promised the public over decades of debate and planning? To answer the question Tuesday morning, just hours after the road opened, these pillars of the community staged a road rally of sorts, pitting two time-honored Gaithersburg-to-Laurel routes against the new highway.

The final section of the Intercounty Connector will be open by 6 a.m. Nov. 22, according to Jack Cahalan, a spokesman for the Maryland Department of Transportation. Previously, the state had not said exactly when the section would open. "The weather has played in our favor," Cahalan said. Construction on the toll road, which cost $2.6 billion, started in 2007. The ICC is currently open from Route 97 (Georgia Avenue) through Interstate 370, which feeds into Interstate 270, the main artery between Frederick and Washington.

Interstate 70 starts its eastward course near Old Cove Fort in Utah, crosses the mighty Rockies by tunneling under Colorado's 11,990-foot-high Loveland Pass, traverses the Great Plains and meanders through the rolling hills of Pennsylvania before dipping into Maryland. And there, after a heroic journey of 2,153 miles, it comes to an inglorious end: a park-and-ride lot just inside the Baltimore Beltway. That could change under a plan being considered by two state agencies to lop off, or severely truncate, I-70's awkward two-mile vestige inside the Beltway.

JOHN HANSON Highway between Annapolis and the Prince George's County line is also known as U.S. 50 and 301.Here's another name: Interstate 595.The highway that runs east and west, to and from Washington -- better known as the way to reach the beach -- has been designated an interstate, State Highway Administration spokeswoman Valerie Burnette Edgar said.Don't look for any signs bearing the I-595 logo."That would be too confusing to drivers," Edgar said. "They've written books about Route 50, drivers know it as Route 50 -- and we've decided to keep the signs up that say Route 50 only."

As of 8:15 a.m., an overturned tanker is causing delays on the inner loop of Interstate 695 at Interstate 70. One of the three lanes on the inner loop is shut down, as well as the right shoulder. There are no major delays on Baltimore area transit systems at this time.

Traffic going south on Interstate 95 to Virginia should use Interstate 495 West, towardSilver Spring, because portions of Interstate 495 East are closed due to flooding. Drivers should plan for extra travel time for the alternate route, the Maryland State Highway Administration said in a Thursday-evening statement. All lanes on Interstate 495 at Telegraph Road and the Woodrow Wilson Bridge are closed because of standing water. Detours are set up on the Maryland side of the bridge for travelers who use Interstate 495 East.

Could Delaware's infamous toll plaza bottleneck finally have been uncorked? Delaware Department of Transportation officials say they've completed a $32.6 million project — just in time for the July 4 holiday weekend — that will greatly reduce the mind-numbing toll collection backups that have made Delaware's border with Maryland the most dreaded stretch of Interstate 95 from Maine to Miami. Department spokesman Michael Williams said the opening of two new high-speed E-ZPass lanes in each direction "will result in dramatic changes in what motorists face when they transit the Newark toll plaza in Delaware.