Jones Falls Expressway

An accident on the Jones Falls Expressway in North Baltimore Saturday caused major delays for about three hours, city police said. The highway was reopened just after 4 p.m. after several hours of closures, said Det. Kevin Brown, a spokesman for the city police. At least two vehicles had been involved in a motor-vehicle accident about 1:10 p.m., on the northbound side of I-83 near Cold Spring Lane, city police said. When a Maryland Transit Administration police officer stopped in the southbound lane to assist, their vehicle struck, resulting in the closure of southbound lanes, near the Northern Parkway exit, Brown said.

The city Department of Transportation has revised this week's overnight closures of the Jones Falls Expressway at 29th Street as crews replace collapsed drainage pipes and repair erosion that threatened to undermine the road. During the closures, traffic will be routed onto the 28th Street exit ramp. Motorists should continue left on Sisson Street, take a left on 29th Street, and then get back onto the JFX. Once the full closures are lifted, the left lane in each direction will remain off limits until the $2 million project is finished.

On Thursday night, all but a single lane of the Jones Falls Expressway near the 29th Street exit will be closed, signaling the start of a $2 million project to replace crushed drainage pipes and to shore up the soil that supports the crucial thoroughfare for commuters and residents. All northbound lanes will be closed each night from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. between this Thursday and Monday. Also, on Thursday, only one southbound lane will be open from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. After this week, transportation authorities will alternate northbound and southbound overnight closures as needed throughout the road reconstruction project to keep traffic flowing.

On an unseasonably warm Saturday nearly four months ago, workers removed six bolts on a manhole cover in the median of the Jones Falls Expressway and lowered an engineer into a dark space about the width of a phone booth. He emerged four hours later with bad news: two half-century-old drainage pipes near 29th Street had been crushed like soda straws and erosion was chewing the underpinnings of Baltimore's busiest road. Test borings, ground-penetrating radar and a camera-toting robot concurred.

Two people were injured critically yesterday when a car ran out of control in the southbound lanes of the Jones Falls Expressway and flipped over near the downtown St. Paul Street exit, authorities said.The car, a 1987 Mitsubishi driven by Constance L. Waites, 38, of the 5400 block of Jamestown Court, hit the right retainer wall about 11 a.m.,crossed the three traffic lanes of the road, hit the middle retainer wall and flipped, city police said.Southbound traffic was halted at Maryland Avenue for about 90 minutes as firefighters worked to free Mrs. Waites and two passengers from the vehicle and clear away debris, said Officer Joseph B. Johnson of the Traffic Investigation Section.

Your Intrepid One tries to avoid the Jones Falls Expressway at all cost during rush hours. Not because of traffic backups, but in fear of daredevil motorists who risk their lives (as well as those of others) to get to or from work.Some incidents we've seen this year, despite trying to stay away:* A woman applying makeup as she drove at least 60 mph in the southbound left lane. The JFX speed limit is 50.* A man veering from the left lane to the exit ramp at Northern Parkway without using his turn signal, as well as not being concerned about cars in the other two lanes.

A Parkton man was killed yesterday morning in a single-car accident off the Jones Falls Expressway in northern Baltimore County, police said.Wayne Scott Stevens, 22, of the 1300 block of Molesworth Road in Parkton was found by state police at 8:08 a.m. south of Belfast Road in Sparks. He had been traveling north on Interstate 83.State police said Mr. Stevens' car skated off the abutment beneath a bridge and plunged 50 feet down an embankment, landing in a ravine.Mr. Stevens was propelled out of his car, and he was pronounced dead at the scene.

Sidney Sakols, a real estate executive and civic activist, died Sunday of multiple organ failure at Keswick Multi-Care Center. He was 90. He was born in Baltimore and lived for five years in East Baltimore before moving in 1922 to a home in the 800 block of Lake Drive, where he would live until his death. After graduating from City College in 1935, he joined S. Sakols & Sons, the family real estate business that had been established by his father. During World War II, he served in the Army and attained the rank of master sergeant.

The city Department of Transportation has revised this week's overnight closures of the Jones Falls Expressway at 29th Street as crews replace collapsed drainage pipes and repair erosion that threatened to undermine the road. During the closures, traffic will be routed onto the 28th Street exit ramp. Motorists should continue left on Sisson Street, take a left on 29th Street, and then get back onto the JFX. Once the full closures are lifted, the left lane in each direction will remain off limits until the $2 million project is finished.

On an unseasonably warm Saturday nearly four months ago, workers removed six bolts on a manhole cover in the median of the Jones Falls Expressway and lowered an engineer into a dark space about the width of a phone booth. He emerged four hours later with bad news: two half-century-old drainage pipes near 29th Street had been crushed like soda straws and erosion was chewing the underpinnings of Baltimore's busiest road. Test borings, ground-penetrating radar and a camera-toting robot concurred.

On Thursday night, all but a single lane of the Jones Falls Expressway near the 29th Street exit will be closed, signaling the start of a $2 million project to replace crushed drainage pipes and to shore up the soil that supports the crucial thoroughfare for commuters and residents. All northbound lanes will be closed each night from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. between this Thursday and Monday. Also, on Thursday, only one southbound lane will be open from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. After this week, transportation authorities will alternate northbound and southbound overnight closures as needed throughout the road reconstruction project to keep traffic flowing.

Drivers were amply warned about lane closures on the Jones Falls Expressway and the resulting traffic jams ("Drivers find delays on JFX," April 17). Even still, I noticed that all the 20 cars in the photograph accompanying The Sun's article on the subject appeared to have just one occupant, a driver. In addition to alternate routes, people should consider another alternative - carpooling! Terry Callanan

A Monday morning accident near 28th Street on the southbound Jones Falls Expressway and a stalled vehicle near the Northern Parkway exit meant traffic was narrowed to a single lane for one lengthy stretch of the popular route to downtown. The two incidents worsened a commute city transportation officials had already warned would be difficult because of planned lane closures. Emergency crews cleared the accident within an hour and a tow truck quickly removed the car, city transportation spokeswoman Adrienne Barnes said.

Motorists making their way downtown Monday through either a narrowed Jones Falls Expressway or crowded city streets may have felt a pang of envy as they watched walkers and cyclists easily outpacing them. Reports varied on Monday's morning commute — the first rush hour since transportation officials closed two lanes of the JFX for two months — but the consensus appeared to be: Whatever route you take, you're going to need more time. Among the observations: •A seven-mile trip down North Charles Street starting at Bellona Avenue took 90 minutes.

Warning: Congestion ahead. Starting next Friday evening, one lane in each direction of the Jones Falls Expressway near 29th Street will be shut down for up to a month while crews make emergency repairs to clogged and collapsed drainage pipes. The work, which could cost up to $1 million, will reduce traffic flow by at least a third and is expected to have a major impact on commuters, city transportation officials said. Motorists are being urged to map alternate routes or take light rail until the work is completed.

I wouldn't wax rhapsodic about the half centennial of the Jones Falls Expressway ("City's six-lane Main Street at 50," Dec. 16). It was the evacuation route for white flight at a time when the strictures of Jim Crow were in retreat under the Warren Court. How else to explain that the planned "transit line" down the center of the road was never built? Coupled with the dismantling of commuter rail and streetcars around the same time, the JFX could guarantee in and out privileges to white suburbanites but left urban blacks without cars with no way out. The irony is that the JFX half centennial observations are coming at a time when The Sun gets floridly paranoid letters deriding PlanMaryland as a socialist plot engendered by Saul Alinsky (who has been dead for almost 40 years)

As of 9:30 a.m., all northbound lanes of the Jones Falls Expressway were closed between Fayette Street and North Avenue due to an accident. In Elkridge, Montgomery Road is closed in both directions between Landing and Hunt Club roads because of a sinkhole. Route 100 is the suggested alternate. There were no major delays on Baltimore area mass transit systems.

The Charles Street ramp to the northbound Jones Falls Expressway will close - weather permitting - for four hours tonight and into tomorrow while workers install a concrete barrier wall, according to Baltimore transportation officials. Motorists trying to get onto northbound Interstate 83 will be detoured west on Mount Royal Avenue to North Avenue, officials said. The ramp will close at 11 p.m. today and reopen at 3 a.m. tomorrow.

Thomas D'Alesandro Jr., the legendary Baltimore mayor who broke ground on the Jones Falls Expressway more than half a century ago, had a political machine to help keep him in office. JFX Foursquare mayor Donna Green has an iPhone and a strong desire to stay connected with her friends. By "checking in" about every other day during commutes to her job as a registered nurse at Johns Hopkins Hospital, the 29-year-old Towson resident has logged more trips on the 9.7-mile expressway than any of the other 15 million users on the location-based social network , earning the recent New York transplant the distinction of being " mayor " of the JFX on its 50th anniversary.

Oct. 2, 1956 : Mayor Thomas D'Alesandro Jr. and state officials break ground for the Jones Falls Expressway. Dec. 16, 1961 : The first, three-mile section opens, from Charles Street at Oliver to Falls Road. An ice storm that evening leads to the first accident on the road. Dec. 24, 1962 : In an article for the American Institute of Architects publication, Baltimore planner George Kostritsky slams highway designers for eschewing a parkway in favor of "a useful but hideous concrete ribbon.