Route 175

In June 1981, Route 175 in Columbia's Long Reach village was a two-lane road, and residents wanted to keep it that way. Representatives of the State Highway Administration came to Jeffers Hill Elementary School to give a presentation of a proposed road-widening between U.S. 29 and Snowden River Parkway, but many residents voiced opposition. One resident said the divided highway would split Long Reach village and create a social barrier between residents on either side of the road. He also said that the wider roadway would be unsafe for the densely populated area surrounding it and that noise levels would be higher because of increased truck traffic.

A Columbia woman died yesterday after an accident involving four cars on Route 175, just outside the Patuxent Institution in Jessup. Doris Adu, 46, of the 6100 block of Starburn Path was pronounced dead at Howard County General Hospital, where she was taken after her eastbound Fort Escort collided head-on with an Acura Legend about 8:30 a.m., Howard County police said. Adu had swerved across the center line to avoid a Toyota Corolla that was stopped on Route 175 to make a legal left turn into Patuxent Institution, police said.

Route 175, downtown Columbia's main thoroughfare, will be the gateway for a four-day jazz festival that starts tomorrow. The Maryland Museum of African Art Jazz Club will present the Baltimore-Washington Jazzfest over four days through Sunday at nine predominantly west Columbia venues. Organizers are calling it "Jazz is Alive on Route 175."Some like their jazz hot and others like it cool, but festival organizers say the music will cater to all kinds of tastes -- from swing, to be-bop to contemporary jazz.

Drivers heading down Route 175 in Howard County soon will be driving on the Jim and Patty Rouse Parkway. The state announced Thursday - Patty Rouse's 80th birthday - that a four-mile stretch of Route 175, between U.S. 29 and Interstate 95, will be named for Columbia's founder and his wife. Bart Harvey, chairman and chief executive officer of the Enterprise Foundation, a national neighborhood revitalization group that the Rouses created in Columbia, said the foundation held a celebration for Patty Rouse and surprised her with the announcement of the road naming.

Traffic along northbound Interstate 95 was delayed for more than two hours yesterday as firefighters and electrical workers battled an electrical fire on a transformer pole alongside the interstate near Route 175.Maryland state police said the fire started about 4: 15 p.m. when the transformer malfunctioned.Police diverted traffic to Route 175, Columbia's main east-west thoroughfare, while Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. workers fixed the transformer, state police said. No one was injured in the incident.

Howard County's chief engineer plans to ask the county to let a Rouse Co. subsidiary design and construct some much-needed and immediate road improvements along Route 175 to accommodate traffic from this fall's opening of Columbia Crossing retail complex.Ronald G. Lepson, the county engineer, outlined that plan Wednesday night at a meeting of a task force weighing traffic control alternatives for the clogged Route 175-Snowden River Parkway and Route 175-Dobbin Road intersections.If the council approves, he said, Rouse's Howard Research and Development (HRD)

State engineers have rejected Howard County's controversial plan to build two novel "dispersed movement" intersections along Route 175 -- the latest twist in a community quandary over how to improve congestion around Snowden River Parkway affordably.The state's decision could cost Howard County more than $11 million if state officials recommend a cloverleaf-style overpass in the area. A long-term solution is perhaps years away.Meanwhile, traffic is expected to worsen at Route 175's intersections with Snowden River and Dobbin Road next month with the opening Columbia Crossing, a warehouse-style retail center that features a Target store the size of three football fields.

THERE ARE NO easy solutions to the traffic problems along Route 175. The State Highway Administration has rejected a plan to build a controversial system of left turns at key intersections along the roadway. Howard County Executive Charles I. Ecker now has a difficult choice: Proceed with an expensive overpass there or settle for relatively minor tinkering at one of the county's worst intersections.The expense of the project seems to justify a decision to delay construction of an interchange.

Soldiers at Fort Meade will perform a security exercise today that will force the post gate at Llewellyn Avenue and Route 175 to close for most of the day.The exercise, code-named Blue Canary, will simulate an attack with a chemical agent and bombs, according to post officials.Military police will do heightened security checks at the Llewellyn gate from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m., and the gate will be closed from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.Chamberlin, Chisolm and 85th Medical Battalion avenues as well as Fifth and Eighth streets on post will be affected by the exercise as well.