Median Strip

Nine people were injured yesterday morning when their Chevrolet van left the northbound lane of Interstate 95 north of Gorman Road near Savage and overturned in the grassy median strip after the driver fell asleep, state police said. Police said the driver of the van, 37-year-old Marvin Vanegas, acknowledged that he had fallen asleep at the wheel. The vehicle was occupied by three adults and six children, who were apparently on their way from Walt Disney World at Orlando, Fla., to New York or New Jersey, said police, who were alerted to the accident shortly after 5 a.m. The other two adults were identified as Sophia Vanegas and Jenny Letona, both of whom were airlifted to the MedStar trauma unit at Washington Hospital Center in the District of Columbia.

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.

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.

Two Harford County residents were charged with marijuana possession in Cecil County earlier this week. The charges occurred as the result of a traffic stop near Elkton, according to a report in the Cecil Whig . Sarah Marie Keithley, 21, of the 800 block of Shawnee Brook Drive in Havre de Grace, was charged with possession of marijuana, according to Maryland online court records. Keithley also received a traffic citation for driving on the median strip. The violation occurred at 2:12 a.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 21, in the 3600 block of Pulaski Highway in Elkton, according to online court records.

State Police are continuing to investigate the cause of a three-car accident in Harford County that killed two women and injured three others.The accident, which occurred at 10:30 a.m. yesterday near the Mountain Road interchange on Interstate 95, was the third fatal wreck on the John F. Kennedy Highway since late March involving cars crossing the median and striking oncoming traffic.It also was the eighth such fatal crash on the 45-mile-long stretch of I-95 since March 1988. Two fatal crashes earlier this year -- one April 1 near Aberdeen that killed four people and another March 29 in Cecil County that killed five people -- prompted state officials to speed up the installation of median barriers to prevent such accidents.

A driver trying to make a U-turn through a median strip crossover on Interstate 70 yesterday set in motion an accident in which a flatbed truck crushed another car, killing its driver, Maryland State Police said. The overturned truck splayed across all three westbound lanes of I-70, just beyond the Beltway, stopping all westbound traffic for about five hours and spurring miles-long traffic tie-ups around the heavily traveled area where the interstate meets the Baltimore Beltway in western Baltimore County.

GARDINER, Maine -- Life's not bad for the woodchucks, rabbits and occasional beavers living in the median of Interstate 95. As long as they can stand the noise. Nor is the truck exhaust rough on the lady's slippers and Queen Anne's lace blooming as freshly in the median greenery as in the deep Maine woods."We joke they live in the biggest state park in Maine," says Robert Van-Riper, standing among mid-June mosquitoes in 90-degree heat in central Maine.Van-Riper is the senior biologist of the Maine Department of Transportation and is ruminating in a median strip wetlands, 75 feet from traffic on both sides, as some of the 15,000 to 20,000 daily vehicles roared by on the Maine Turnpike.

MILLERSVILLE -- A 19-year-old Ellicott City man died yesterday after his northbound car crossed the median strip of Interstate 97 and crashed into two cars in the highway's southbound lanes, police said.Bryan James Mullane was driving on I-97, south of Benfield Boulevard, just before 7 a.m. when his 1986 Pontiac drifted onto the right shoulder and struck a guardrail, police said. That collision caused his right rear tire to go flat, and the car careened across the northbound lanes, through the grass median strip and into oncoming traffic in the southbound lanes, police said.

A Severna Park man faces assault and traffic charges after he led Anne Arundel County and state police on a wild chase that ended in Frederick County after police shot him early yesterday morning.Shawn Alfred Chowanetz, 25, of the 1200 block of Purnell Road, was in serious condition yesterday with a gunshot wound to his arm at Maryland Shock Trauma Center.He is charged with assault with intent to murder, auto theft, theft, driving while intoxicated and reckless driving.The incident started at 12:45 a.m. when police received a shoplifting complaint from the 7-Eleven store at Jumper's Hole Road and Benfield Boulevard and later spotted the suspect in a red Dodge Daytona, stolen from West Virginia, heading north on Ritchie Highway.

A 30-year-old man was killed Sunday when he lost control of his vehicle and hit a bridge support in Glen Burnie.William Jennings Thompson Jr., of Piney Creek Road in Chester, was pronounced dead at North Arundel Hospital after the 3:30 a.m. accident.The police said Thompson was driving his pickup truck east on Route 100 near Ritchie Highway when he ran into the median strip and hit a concrete bridge support. The truck caught fire after impact.

The body of an unidentified man was found early Sunday on the median strip near a Giant Food store in Owings Mills, and police believe he may have died of natural causes, Baltimore County police said. The man's body was found in the 9900 block of Reisterstown Road, around 8 a.m. The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner will conduct an autopsy to determine a cause of death, authorities said. As part of its preliminary investigation, police do not suspect foul play. Gus.sentementes@baltsun.com Twitter.com/gussent Text BUSINESS to 70701 to get Baltimore Sun Business text alerts

From this moment on, I apologize to you all in advance if you are stuck driving behind me in the city of Baltimore on weekday mornings. Feel free to lay a long and sonorous honking on me, shout at me from your window as you zip around me, or gesticulate wildly in your rear-view mirror, but I will be driving the posted speed limit of 30 miles per hour on side roads. It's kind of embarrassing, but ever since I began working in downtown Baltimore, I have received weekly photo verifications of my speeding infractions on various city streets, adding an extra $40 per week to my commuting costs.

A teenage boy was shot in the face Tuesday evening on a median strip between Frederick Douglass High School and Mondawmin Mall and was taken by a city Fire Department ambulance to Sinai Hospital, authorities said. His identity and condition were not available, police said. First reports were that a fight occurred between at least two males attending a basketball game between Douglass and Patterson about 7 p.m. and that shots were fired in the school. Anthony Guglielmi, a city police spokesman, and Edie House Foster, a spokeswoman for the city schools, said the victim was not shot in the school but on a median strip in the 2300 block of Gwynns Fall Parkway, between the school and the mall.

Cars whiz by like unguided missiles while Bill Vondrasek stands on the median strip of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard surveying a disorderly patch of greenery accented with red, green, blue and yellow blossoms. He's mildly displeased. As the city's chief horticulturist, its flower beds are his domain. "All up and down Martin Luther King on the end paths there are what we call `gateway beds,'" Vondrasek says. "It's a program funded by federal transportation money because this is a gateway into the city, and we want gateways into the city to look nice."

On Saturday, Cleveland resident Dianne Hearey was in town visiting her son when she found herself among the delighted Artscape crowd in front of the bandstand listening to O'Malley's March, the spirited Celtic music group founded by Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley. "I love it!" Hearey exclaimed. "We don't have anything like this in Cleveland. We don't have a mayor like that either. This whole city seems so alive!" With near perfect weather - sunny, temperatures in the high 80s and low humidity - more musical entertainment than ever and festive crowds lining the length of Mount Royal Avenue's culture corridor, Baltimore pulled out all the stops over the weekend for Artscape 2005, the city's 24th annual outdoor festival of the arts.

Plans to divide a section of Belair Road in Perry Hall with a median strip or barrier have been dropped, state highway officials announced yesterday. The decision by state Transportation Secretary Robert L. Flanagan yesterday followed a Monday night meeting in which about 150 residents and business owners in the Baltimore County community gathered to protest the plan to include a median strip in proposed road improvements to Belair Road between Cottington and Joppa roads and nearby India Avenue.

County officials are reviewing a plan submitted by the State Highway Administration for landscaping the median strip of Route 140 entering Westminster.County landscape planner Neil Ridgely is working with Carroll public works officials to determine annual maintenance costs, which would be the county's only cost for the project, said planner Steven Horn.SHA's plan, which was requested by the county, involves planting trees, shrubs and colorful seasonal plants along the median of the highway between Route 97 and Route 31, said Horn.

Owners of businesses along the 'Boomtown' strip of Route 175 in Odenton know their reputation as a seedy commercial thoroughfare still lingers, but when faced with what some residents see as improvements, the resounding response is to leave them alone.They don't want a grass median strip down the middle of Annapolis Boulevard, no matter how many turning lanes traverse it. They are leery of an access road and they fear more trees will make their stores and signs invisible to passing traffic.

A driver trying to make a U-turn through a median strip crossover on Interstate 70 yesterday set in motion an accident in which a flatbed truck crushed another car, killing its driver, Maryland State Police said. The overturned truck splayed across all three westbound lanes of I-70, just beyond the Beltway, stopping all westbound traffic for about five hours and spurring miles-long traffic tie-ups around the heavily traveled area where the interstate meets the Baltimore Beltway in western Baltimore County.

A driver trying to make a U-turn through a median strip crossover on Interstate 70 yesterday set in motion an accident in which a flatbed truck crushed another car, killing its driver, Maryland State Police said. The overturned truck splayed across all three westbound lanes of I-70, just beyond the Beltway, stopping all westbound traffic for about five hours and spurring miles-long traffic tie-ups around the heavily traveled area where the interstate meets the Baltimore Beltway in western Baltimore County.