Median

The Carroll County commissioners exhibited inane and simple-minded reasoning in rejecting the state's recent offer to landscape the median strip on Route 140. We're talking about something fairly basic: Whether to spruce up an ugly highway. You'd have thought the state had asked Carroll to take a toxic waste dump the way the commissioners responded, however.The cost of the planting apparently loomed large in these commissioners' minds. And yet even if the county's annual cost was $24,000 (according to one estimate)

Four presidents at public research universities made a collective $9.2 million in fiscal year 2012, with the top earner of the group making much of his money because he was fired, according to a report released Sunday by the Chronicle of Higher Education. Graham B. Spanier, who was terminated from Pennsylvania State University in late 2011 for his handling of a child-molestation scandal, was paid $2.9 million - $1.2 million of it in severance. This was the first fiscal year that four presidents topped the million mark in compensation.

The median sales price of an existing home in the Baltimore area in the fourth quarter of 1998 fell below the national average and failed to keep pace with the national inflation rate, according to statistics released by the National Association of Realtors.Existing homes in the Baltimore area had a median price in the fourth quarter of $119,400 compared with $131,000 nationwide. The median is the midpoint, with half the homes selling for more and half for less.Existing-home median prices in the area rose from $117,300 in the fourth quarter of 1997 -- an increase of 1.8 percent.

A nine-year veteran Bladensburg police officer was killed Saturday after veering his marked vehicle off an Anne Arundel County highway and colliding with a car traveling in the opposite direction, police said. Officer Brian Johnson, 38, who was off duty when the collision occurred about 9 a.m., is believed to have experienced a medical emergency just prior to the collision, Anne Arundel County Police said, though no specifics were immediately available. Police believe Johnson was traveling eastbound on Route 100 near Catherine Avenue in Pasadena when he suddenly crossed the center median.

The South continues to be the hot spot for home appreciation as the National Association of Realtors reported that the median price for homes sales was up in the third quarter over the same period last year.Nationally, the median existing-home price for the third quarter was $126,500, a 5 percent higher than in the third quarter of 1996. Of the 131 areas surveyed, 122 metropolitan areas had an increase and nine areas had double-digit increases.Among the leaders was New Orleans and the Fort Lauderdale, Fla., area, which rose 11.3 percent over the third quarter in 1996.

A driver whose car crossed a median and struck a police cruiser in front of police headquarters has been released from Maryland Shock Trauma Center. The driver of the crossing car, LeeAnna Lynn Siegmund, 23, of Augusta Avenue in Baltimore was traveling north on Courthouse Drive shortly after 2 a.m. Wednesday, police said. Her Pontiac Sunfire jumped the concrete median at Rogers Avenue, police said, and headed north in the southbound lanes of Rogers Avenue. Police said that the Sunfire hit Pfc. Ronald Mabe III's cruiser.

A speeding car weaving between lanes on southbound U.S. 29 crossed the median south of Columbia and collided with a northbound car yesterday, sending both drivers to Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore. Howard County police said an officer in an unmarked police car saw a 1993 Toyota Paseo speeding and weaving between lanes on U.S. 29 at 2:40 p.m. The officer tried to stop the vehicle, but the driver sped up, police said. As the Paseo's driver approached Rivers Edge Road, south of Route 32, the vehicle suddenly changed lanes, skidding across the grassy median and into the northbound lanes, where it was struck by a 2000 Toyota Camry driven by Joshua Jacobs, 39, of the 6100 block of Rusk Ave. in Baltimore.

The median price of an existing single-family home in the Baltimore metropolitan market rose to $128,800 in the third quarter of 1999, a 4.5 percent increase over the third quarter of 1998.Last year the median price in Baltimore, according to a report by the National Association of Realtors, was $123,300.The median is the midpoint, signifying that half the homes sold for less and half of the homes sold for more.The NAR reported that the national median price rose to $136,000 during the third quarter, up 4.1 percent.

The median monthly home mortgage payment in Maryland is $1,296, based on new data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Maryland ranked eighth in terms of median monthly mortgage payments in the 2000 Census. The Maryland figure was up 10.5 percent from a median payment of $1,173 in 1990. Almost 8 out of 10 of Maryland's 1.2 million homeowners had a mortgage, according to the figures. Washington, D.C., was ninth in the nation, with monthly mortgages of $1,291, up 6.8 percent from $1,209 in 1990.

At the most expensive colleges and universities, a four-year degree can be a $150,000 investment in the future. Is it worth it? On a purely material level, a new Web site can help answer that. At www.educationpays.org, you'll find median salaries for 106 occupations - from accountant to veterinarian - broken down by educational level. Always wanted to be a firefighter? The median salary for that job is about $42,000 for those with a high school diploma. But getting a college degree boosts median pay by 12 grand a year.

Howard County's new U.S. 1 meets the old near the Route 175 intersection, where the Jessup Plaza features a deli that offers breakfast all day, along with money orders, a shiatsu massage parlor and Jimmy G's Check Cashing. Just north of that, though, builders are raising Howard Square, a new project with townhouses, apartments and stores. Howard Square is part of the U.S. 1 envisioned by county planners, who for years have been charting a future for the old highway — maintaining its role as a job center while improving the appearance to make it inviting to development different from the hodgepodge of strip malls and fast-food restaurants so prevalent along the route.

Baltimore City Councilwoman Rochelle "Rikki" Spector introduced a bill Monday that would crack down on what she deems "aggressive" panhandling. Spector's bill would make it illegal for people to solicit handouts along street shoulders, medians and in traffic. It's a problem that's been getting worse with time, the 5th District Democrat said, and her constituents frequently ask her to fix it. "It's the aggressive kind of panhandling that I've been trying to get my arms around for a long time," Spector said Monday.

A tractor trailer overturned in a median on Interstate 695 near Hollins Ferry Road in Baltimore County about 10 p.m. Wednesday, shutting down lanes on both the inner and outer loops because of a fuel spill, officials said. The driver of the tractor trailer was taken to the hospital with minor injuries, according to the Maryland State Police. No other cars were involved. Several lanes surrounding the median were closed as hazardous materials teams tried to clean up the fuel. The road remained closed as of 11 p.m. Wednesday.

Four people, including an 8-year-old boy, were transported to the Maryland Shock Trauma Center on Wednesday morning after a vehicle traveling north on Interstate 895 crossed a highway median into oncoming traffic, according to Maryland Transportation Authority police. A total of six vehicles were involved in the subsequent collision, which occurred shortly before 8 a.m. just north of the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel and closed the highway in both directions, said Sgt. Jonathan Green, a police spokesman.

Since Baltimore is in tight financial straits, why build a grass median in the middle of any city street ("City erected six-foot fence to protect grass," May 27)? Grass requires maintenance - mowing, watering, clearing debris. Instead, use that $20,000 to plant vegetable gardens neighborhoods can use to provide food for the hungry or create grass playgrounds for children. Anne Hackney, Parkton

The Baltimore Department of Transportation has a message for the residents of Tuscany-Canterbury: Do not walk on our grass. But instead of little signs, the transportation department conveys that message with a six-foot, spike-topped fence. The barrier runs down the middle of the newly seeded median it is protecting. "They say it's to protect the grass, but a light layer of hay would have remedied that," said Sandra Snow, who lives and works in the neighborhood. "A nice path, a walkway, a low hedge - there are so many things that could have been done.

Alcohol-impaired driver Anne Arundel County Circuit Judge Paul A. Hackner convicted yesterday Earl Wayne Bowers, 45, of Stevensville of homicide while impaired by alcohol and of related traffic charges, prosecutors said. Killed in the Feb. 11 accident was Giovany Acosta, 24, of Reisterstown, one of three workers pruning bushes in the median of Ritchie Highway in Arnold. The other two were hurt. Police said a van, which police said Bowers was driving, plunged into the men. Bowers contended that he had a beer and sandwich just before the crash because, as a diabetic, he felt he needed something to stave off a blackout.

A family of three in Baltimore County needs about $62,000 just to make ends meet, a new report shows. And, without government assistance, minimum wage barely gets them a quarter of the way there. In Baltimore City, that same family of an adult with a preschooler and a school-age child needs nearly $50,000, the report said, for a bare-bones budget. The 2012 Self-Sufficiency Standard, scheduled to be released in Annapolis on Thursday morning, calculates the cost of living for Maryland families based on prices of such necessities as housing, food, transportation and child care.

A man was killed Tuesday after he was hit by a vehicle in Northwest Baltimore, police said. The 62-year-old man was standing in the median strip of the 3500 block of Park Heights Ave. just before 3:30 p.m. when he was struck by a passing vehicle, according to Detective Nicole Monroe, a Baltimore Police Department spokeswoman. The man leaned forward as the vehicle passed and was struck in the head by a side mirror, she said. He was pronounced dead at Sinai Hospital. His name will be released after his family is notified of his death.