Liberty Road

With maps, designs and pictures, the State Highway Administration will show Eldersburg residents how the agency plans to improve Liberty Road in south Carroll.State and county officials will meet with residents at 7 p.m. today at Liberty High School to review planning studies of the congested corridor and discuss strategies for the future of the road, which is Route 26, a state highway. "We are asking the state to show us examples of what has been done in other places," said Steve Horn, county bureau chief of planning.

IN rain-splattered Randallstown yesterday, they joined voices to trumpet a bright new day of art and culture, and bicycle paths and pedestrian bridges, and theaters and playing fields. That day will take a few years to arrive, but so what? In Randallstown, it can feel like years just crossing from one side of cluttered Liberty Road to the other. This northwest corridor of Baltimore County is a collage of green and leafy residential neighborhoods divided by a kind of Berlin Wall of gas stations and fast-food joints, bail bond operations and liquor stores, and traffic that coughs and wheezes and sputters at its center.

A 74-year-old Sykesville woman died Monday night from injuries she sustained in a two-vehicle accident that day on Liberty Road near Oklahoma Road in Eldersburg. State police in Westminster said Elizabeth Ostrander of the 2300 block of Erin Road was driving a 1986 Plymouth Reliant west when she made a left turn into the path of an eastbound 2000 Toyota Tacoma driven by Joseph Paul Linsenmeyer, 21, of Randallstown. Ostrander and a passenger in the Toyota truck, Megan Ringley, 16, of Sykesville, were taken by helicopter to Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore, where Ostrander died about 10:30 p.m., police said.

A 17-year-old effort to spruce up the Liberty Road corridor in Baltimore County finally might see results this year, if community activists and politicians succeed in a rigorous planning strategy now formally under way.Conceived in 1980, the Liberty Action Plan is intended to rejuvenate the 9-mile commercial and residential corridor that stretches from the city line to Deer Park Road.The latest push calls for county officials in public works, economic development, parks and other departments to spend six months focusing on three major areas: commercial revitalization, rental housing, and youth and recreational programs.

Responding to a fatal accident that police said was caused by a drunken driver Sunday on a stretch of Liberty Road that prompted a slew of safety proposals a year ago, Del. Emmett C. Burns Jr. has pledged to reintroduce legislation to install speed cameras. Burns and several other county and city delegates introduced a bill during the last legislative session to install the cameras. They are similar to red-light cameras, which photograph vehicles failing to stop at traffic signals. Police trace the license plates and send the owners citations in the mail.

Until April, Woodmoor Shopping Center was blighted with potholes, trash and cracked sidewalks. Its sign was more than 30 years old, the area was poorly lighted and the parking lot was a mess.Everett Kerr, who manages the North Star Book Store there, said he knew area residents who wouldn't shop at Woodmoor, and he summed the place up in a word: "Horrid."But after Baltimore County and the shopping center owner invested a combined $1 million, the property at Liberty and Essex roads has taken on a fresh look.

Students at Century High School in Carroll County yesterday packed the main lobby, media center and nurse's office for help from a crisis support team as they struggled to comprehend the death of a popular junior who died Wednesday night in a car accident. Gretchen Martina Brandt, 16, of Woodbine was killed when her car crossed the center line into eastbound Liberty Road and was struck by a sport utility vehicle, state police said yesterday. Crisis counselors were at three Sykesville schools yesterday to help students and faculty deal with the loss.

A 16-year-old girl attempting to cross five lanes of traffic on Liberty Road west of Georgetown Boulevard in Eldersburg Friday evening was hit by a car and died at Carroll County General Hospital, state police said.Kristin Diane Zorn, of the 1800 block of Liberty Road in Eldersburg, entered the first westbound lane of traffic at 8: 48 p.m. and was hit by a 1989 Chevrolet Beretta driven by Lindsay N. Crispino, 16, of Sykesville.No charges were filed, police said.

Repair work on a broken water main and damaged roadway is expected to cause traffic disruptions today and tomorrow at one of Baltimore County's most heavily traveled intersections - Liberty Road and Washington Avenue - and could slow motorists on the nearby Baltimore Beltway. Kurt L. Kocher, spokesman for Baltimore's Department of Public Works, said a break in a 12-inch main yesterday afternoon under the intersection caused a section of the road to collapse. Only six water customers were without service, Kocher said, but the break - reported during the evening rush hour - seriously affected traffic on Liberty Road and on the Beltway exits to westbound Liberty.

Baltimore County police announced yesterday that during a 10-week intensified patrol of Liberty Road they made 17 drunken-driving arrests and issued more than 4,000 traffic tickets.Forty county police officers, working with the Motor Vehicle Administration on one of the county's most dangerous stretches of highway, also cited 180 motorists for driving on suspended or revoked licenses.During the project, which began June 28 and increased the visibility of patrols in the Liberty Road corridor, armed robberies also declined in the area by 59 percent over the same period the previous year.