Route 26

Carroll County will build two missing segments of Monroe Avenue in Eldersburg, links that will provide traffic with a complete connector road from Route 26 to Route 32 and an alternative to the congested highways. Legislation approved in 2004 allows the county to pay for road construction projects with public funds and then seek reimbursement as properties along the route are developed. This will be the first instance that the commissioners have relied on the new law to build roads. Several subdivisions are planned along Monroe Avenue, and the developer of Oak Creek is building a portion of the road near Bennett Road.

Road project on fast track after Carroll chips in An unprecedented sharing of costs for roadway safety improvements in Eldersburg has moved a Carroll County project ahead on the State Highway Administration's priority list. The county has offered $2.5 million, more than half the estimated $4.3 million cost, to widen Route 26 at Route 32, add a southbound turn lane to Route 32, build a six-foot median for about a half-mile on Route 32 to Macbeth Way and install a traffic signal at Macbeth Way. "This is the first partnership of this magnitude I can recall," said Mark Crampton, SHA's assistant district engineer for project development.

With the county's No. 1 road project finally under way in Hampstead, Carroll County officials have moved to other concerns on their yearly transportation priority list. When Robert L. Flanagan, Maryland's secretary of transportation, visited the county last week, the county commissioners and Carroll's delegation to the General Assembly, led by Republican Sen. Larry E. Haines, gave Flanagan their priorities for 2005-2006. Flanagan also outlined some of the projects in the state's six-year Consolidated Transportation Program for 2006-2011, with an emphasis upon relieving congestion and improving safety.

With the $76 million Hampstead bypass set for construction early next year, Carroll County officials are turning their state road building priorities south to the most populous area. The commissioners have made the widening of Route 32 from Route 26 to Macbeth Way in Eldersburg the county's main construction project. The county has committed $2.5 million to the $5 million construction cost. The commissioners also will urge the state to complete engineering and acquire any remaining land needed for upgrades along Route 26, the main artery through Eldersburg.

The Carroll County commissioners have shifted $3.5 million they had allocated for road improvements in South Carroll from one state roads project to another, hoping that their action will jump-start work on Route 32. The commissioners will allocate $1 million of the money to the long-planned safety and aesthetic enhancements along the Route 26 corridor through Eldersburg, and $2.5 million will be used to improve the troublesome intersection of routes 26...

Lured by the promise of rural vistas, quality schools and safe communities, new residents are flocking to Carroll County and expanding the population in numbers that are nearly twice the national average. Since the 2000 census, the county has added about 16,000 residents, and the population is expected to grow by nearly 10 percent by 2010. The county commissioners have made high-paying jobs, road and school improvements and additional social services their priorities. "It's beautiful here with lots of the farmland that people crave," said Commissioner Julia Walsh Gouge.

The Freedom Area Citizens Council has taken its plea for safer roads to state transportation officials, urging them to make immediate improvements to Routes 32 and 26 in southern Carroll County. The state is considering several costly improvements to the highways, which are the main arteries serving the Freedom area, the county's most populous and fastest-growing community, which includes Sykesville and Eldersburg. Among the requested upgrades to a 2 1/2 -mile stretch of Route 26, also known as Liberty Road, are service roads, a median, sidewalks and landscaping, a project estimated to cost about $25 million.

While Carroll County pushes the Hampstead Bypass, improvements to Routes 26 and 32 in Eldersburg and a redesign of the Route 140 corridor in Westminster with the State Highway Administration, one commissioner wants to revive discussion of a bypass for the county seat. Commissioner Dean L. Minnich said yesterday that he would like a committee appointed to study the feasibility of a Westminster Bypass, a long-envisioned road that the administration of former Gov. Parris N. Glendening scrapped more than five years ago, saying it would promote sprawl.

The county commissioners are considering shifting about $4 million from local road projects in South Carroll to pay the initial cost of several highway improvements in the area, hoping their contribution could help persuade the state to complete the projects. "The state has said that if we put up money, we will get these roads," Commissioner Julia Walsh Gouge said yesterday. "They are more than willing to work with us." The board would switch its focus from local roads to planning and engineering for the Route 26 and Route 32 corridors and the intersection of the two highways.

The Carroll County commissioners voted yesterday to sell less than an acre of land to the State Highway Administration for a new roundabout to be built next year in South Carroll. Two parcels totaling less than 0.4 of an acre will be sold to the state for $7,700 for the roundabout at Routes 97 and 850 -- the old Route 26 -- near Eldersburg, said Charles E. Ruppert, a county land acquisition specialist in the Department of Public Works. He said he learned of the plan last week, although safety in the area near the park-and-ride lot has long been a concern.