Route 175

North Odenton merchants, Seven Oaks residents and police say they are working together to prevent crime and improve the image of the Route 175 business strip, which is dotted with vacant, neglected lots.Two months after business and community leaders asked police for increased patrols to help prevent break-ins, robberies and loitering, people who live and work in the area are starting to notice a change."The bottom line here is, the initial steps we've taken, we're very satisfied with," said Thomas C. Funk, co-owner of Cho-Son Oak restaurant in the 1500 block of Annapolis Road.

3/8 TC A dump truck driver who testified that he did all he could to avoid an accident that killed a Columbia woman was found not guilty of manslaughter in Howard District Court yesterday.While acquitted of the most serious charge against him, Gary Bernstein of Reisterstown was found guilty of five lesser charges for the April 29 accident that killed Suzanne Denise Bice and severely injured her 12-year-old son.Judge R. Russell Sadler reached the verdict after a day-long trial that included testimony from the 37-year-old truck driver, who described how he tried to avoid the crash by shifting and braking his 65,230-pound vehicle.

Relief is on the way for motorists who traverse two of Howard County's busiest intersections -- U.S. 29 at Route 216 and Route 175 at Snowden River Parkway.Crews have started construction of new overpasses at the crossings, which cause daily backups during the morning and evening rush hours.Work on a third intersection -- U.S. 29 and Johns Hopkins Road -- won't begin until next summer at the earliest.A new traffic signal-free interchange at Route 175 and Snowden River Parkway in east Columbia is expected to open in the fall of 2000 -- nearly a year before the U.S. 29 and Route 216 project in Scaggsville is completed.

State officials will unveil their options today to widen parts of Route 175 between the heart of Odenton and the Baltimore-Washington Parkway before a major expansion at nearby Fort Meade. The 5.2-mile project, which could cost nearly $350 million, would expand the highway from four to six lanes in congested areas leading to Fort Meade. It would also extend the highway from two to four or five lanes near the future Odenton Town Center, a long-sought, pedestrian-friendly mix of homes and businesses.

Construction at Route 175 and Snowden River Parkway is moving smoothly this summer, and so is traffic. The intersection, one of the most heavily traveled in the Baltimore-Washington corridor, is in the second phase of a project that will transform Route 175 into an overpass. The project will eliminate traffic lights in the area and, officials hope, the long waits and congestion that have afflicted the intersection for years as traffic has increased. "Right now, we're just beginning to pour the bridge deck that will connect 175 over Snowden River Parkway," said Lora Rakowski, public information officer for the State Highway Administration.

HOWARD COUNTY engineers are to be commended for their thrift and imagination in seeking alternatives to an expensive cloverleaf interchange on Route 175 at Snowden River Parkway and Dobbin Road. But their proposal to build an innovative "dispersed movement" intersection was ultimately deemed too risky by the State Highway Administration -- and rightly so.Dispersed movement systems use a series of timed traffic signals to route left-turning cars across oncoming lanes and onto new access roads.

Motorists who creep north along the two-lane portion of Route 29 from Seneca Drive to Route 175 may finally see work begin next year on a long-planned project to widen the highway to three lanes. Gov. Martin O'Malley announced $48 million in new state funding yesterday for the long-delayed project, part of a $468 million statewide transportation budget. An additional $56.8 million was set aside for the replacement of older transit buses, another long-standing problem for Howard Transit.

The highway that leaders of Anne Arundel and Howard counties most want improved is Route 175 connecting Fort Meade to the busy intersection at U.S. 1 in Jessup, but prospects look dim for sufficient state money any time soon. For the second year in a row, Howard County Executive Ken Ulman made planning for a new U.S. 1 interchange with Route 175 his top priority in a letter to John D. Porcari, Maryland's transportation secretary. Anne Arundel County Executive John R. Leopold also said widening the road that connects the two counties is his top highway priority, especially with the influx of workers expected within the next three years with the relocation of military base personnel.

A 75-year-old Illinois man who was in a head-on collision after making a U-turn on Route 175 in Columbia on Monday afternoon has been charged in the accident, which injured six people.Howard County police said Steve Petrovich of Chicago was charged with negligent driving and failure to drive on the right side of a divided highway."It was probably just a matter of being lost and confused," said Officer Scott Wichtendahl of the traffic enforcement section, which is investigating the accident.

Officials in Columbia's Long Reach village are assailing a new Howard County plan for a series of unusually designed left-turn lanes with their own stop lights at heavily traveled Route 175's intersections with Snowden River Parkway and Dobbin Road.They contend that the plan announced this week as part of County Executive Charles I. Ecker's capital budget violates promises by county and Rouse Co. officials to build a free-flowing cloverleaf intersection at the Route 175-Snowden River intersection.