Jones Falls Expressway

Baltimore police and correctional officers were searching Wednesday for a man who escaped from the downtown booking center and forced authorities to briefly shut down the Jones Falls Expressway when he apparently ran across the highway. In an unrelated incident at the city detention center, located near the booking center, prison officials said a detainee was stabbed during an altercation. Correctional officials said the detainee who escaped, Maury Figueroa, 29, got through a secured, controlled entryway while working on a sanitation detail.

As of 8:30 a.m., traffic was slow on the outer loop of the Baltimore Beltway at the Jones Falls Expressway, due to an accident. Accidents were slowing traffic on I-795 at Owings Mills Boulevard in Baltimore County, Reisterstown and Kingsley roads in Baltimore County and Liberty and Marriottsville roads in Carroll County. Part of Cold Spring Lane was closed around Roland Avenue, due to roadwork. There were no major delays on Baltimore transit systems.

A member of Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's security detail and a motorist were injured Monday evening in an accident on the Jones Falls Expressway, according to a statement from Det. Jeremy Silbert, a police spokesman. The officer was southbound in an unmarked SUV about 8:30, returning to City Hall, when the vehicle was struck at the Guilford Avenue exit by another vehicle, the statement said. The mayor was not in the SUV. Both drivers were taken to the Maryland Shock Trauma Center for treatment of injuries police called non-life threatening.

As of 9 a.m. traffic was slow on the southbound Jones Falls Expressway at 28th Street, due to an accident. Accidents were slowing traffic on southbound Route 29 at St. Johns Lane in Howard County; Marriottsville Road near I-70 in Howard County; Aliceanna Street at President Street in Baltimore City, and Route 702 at Old Eastern Avenue in Essex. A utility problem was causing lane closures on Route 23 at Houcks Road in Harford County. There were no major delays reported on Baltimore area transit systems.

This morning, the Baltimore City Department of Transportation sought to put a good face on the havoc the Baltimore Grand Prix is playing on downtown traffic when it used the word "slight" four times in a three-sentence news release to describe the delays motorists might experience. But the backups on I-395 the city warned about (plus those on the Jones Falls Expressway, Russell Street, Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and other routes the city didn't mention) are just the beginning.

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.

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.

Flooding closed the Jones Falls Expressway near Penn Station during Thursday evening's rush hour and forced evacuations in north Baltimore, as a steady rain punctuated by heavy showers and isolated thunderstorms soaked the region with more than 2.5 inches of precipitation. Gov. Martin O'Malley declared a state of emergency as the rain intensified, and the National Weather Service added a flash flood warning for the evening on top of the earlier coastal and flood warnings for the area.

Traffic backed up for miles Monday night on the southbound lanes of the Jones Falls Expressway after a sport utility vehicle went off the highway, slid down a 10-foot high snowy embankment and overturned near light rail tracks, according to police and fire officials. The accident occurred about 6:30 p.m. about a half mile south of Northern Parkway. Two people were injured and rushed to Sinai Hospital suffering what fire officials described as non-life threatening injuries. By 8 p.m., all lanes were reopened and traffic was flowing both directions.

(From the Getting There blog ) The State Highway Administration has released a short list of the worst of the worst backups that bedeviled drivers Wednesday night and early Thursday morning. The list does not include the Jones Falls Expressway in Baltimore, one of the most severely affected roads, because it is maintained by the city Department of Transportation. Prudent motorists will file these locations away mentally because the same characteristics that turned them into parking lots could crop up again in a future snowstorm.