Routes

Carroll County school officials are continuing their investigation into whether a bus driver did anything wrong by starting a daily prayer Sept. 12 and then permitting the middle school pupils to continue to pray each morning after she was told to stop leading them in the Lord's Prayer. Interim Superintendent Charles I. Ecker dispatched an assistant supervisor of transportation to ride on Stella Tsourakis' bus routes yesterday "to see what's happening." School administrators continued to interview schoolchildren and the bus contractor to determine whether Tsourakis broke a federal law by initiating prayer and continuing to lead or encourage the daily prayers after she was told to stop.

Carroll County Bank and Trust Co.'s plan to move its Eldersburg branch to the corner of routes 26 and 32 cleared a major hurdle yesterday.The Carroll County Planning and Zoning Commission agreed to subdivide a 2.75-acre lot from a 15-acre parcel at the intersection's northeast corner. The Westminster-based bank is negotiating to buy the smaller tract to consolidate offices at 1438 Liberty Road and 6210 Georgetown Blvd.Before the project can proceed, though, the bank must receive conditional use approval from the county Board of Zoning Appeals to allow a banking facility on the tract, which is zoned for industrial use. A board hearing is scheduled at 10:30 a.m. June 24."

Howard County commuter bus riders got a reprieve yesterday from a state proposal to eliminate all service between Baltimore and Columbia as well as along the U.S. 1 corridor to Laurel. A compromise on budget cuts hammered out about midnight Thursday and announced yesterday will save all three threatened bus routes, though it will reduce the number of trips, starting Jan. 12. Howard County government also agreed to contribute $200,000 this fiscal year to keep the buses running, and the state agreed to extend another route now serving Ellicott City to Columbia.

After an overwhelmingly negative reaction from transit riders, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. ordered yesterday a monthlong extension of the public comment period for a proposed restructuring of Baltimore-area bus routes. Ehrlich and state Transportation Secretary Robert L. Flanagan, in one of the administration's highest-profile transit projects, have proposed eliminating routes that serve few riders and altering others to increase efficiency. Hundreds of riders - many of them elderly or disabled - have packed public meetings over the past few weeks to decry the plans, which they said would wreak havoc on their lives.

A preliminary traffic study of South Carroll calls for $17 million in road connector projects to keep local traffic off Routes 32 and 26, the region's two main arteries.The study, prepared by traffic analysts Whitney, Bailey, Cox & Magnani of Towson, urges the county to build 19 connector and service roads to accommodate local traffic.The $75,000 study says the connectors are the only way to relieve failed intersections and prevent numerous accidents along Routes 32 and 26. From 1993 to 1995, 237 accidents, including four fatalities, occurred on Route 26 from Route 97 to the Baltimore County line.

IF YOU like to take long-distance vacations, President Jimmy Carter signed a piece of legislation 20 years ago this month that changed your life for the better.The Airline Deregulation Act is not only widely regarded as an unqualified success for consumers, but it is also credited with pumping fresh blood into a sluggish airline industry and starting a revolution in the federal regulation of business.But two decades into the journey, there is an overcast on the horizon. A growing group of critics are asking whether America's experiment with deregulation isn't flying off course and poorly serving millions of travelers.

SYKESVILLE - Parts of routes 32 and 97 stretch the breadth of Howard and Carroll counties, and apparently so does opposition to state plans for improving the roadways.Howard County Council members introduced resolutions that would limit state plans for road improvements in that county, following a public meeting at which more than 300 angry residents came out to air their objections.And in Carroll, residents opposed to the road plans turned out for a meeting near Sykesville last week to make their feelings known to state administrators.

Being in limbo is the equivalent of a death warrant in business. For those hoping to develop a relatively modest parcel in Howard County, though, a reprieve, if there is to be one, will not come soon. Indeed, their plans continue to sink deeper into the abyss -- the victim of opposition on multiple fronts. The owners are seeking rezoning of the property -- 27.5 acres at Routes 100 and 103 -- to develop it commercially. David A. Carney, an attorney representing the estate of Carroll and Ruth Braun, said the property most likely would be developed for office space, a restaurant or age-restricted housing.

A recent transportation study of the Freedom District recommends service roads be built along the busy Route 26 corridor and long-planned connector roads be completed.The proposed roads would give local traffic other options than the main thoroughfares, Routes 26 and 32. Both concepts were also included in a 21-year-old master plan for the Freedom District, but the roads were not constructed. The county has not abandoned those projects and recently paid $200,000 for a 1.5-acre parcel on Route 26 west of Monroe Avenue that will serve as a link in a long-planned service road.

A story in Sunday's editions of The Sun about efforts to bring a government-financed magnetic levitation train system to the Washington-Baltimore corridor incorrectly identified Maryland Economic Growth Associates. MEGA is a division of the Maryland Business Council, a private, non-profit organization that receives no public funding.The Sun regrets the error.Hoping to lure a federal prototype that could be worth nearly a billion dollars, state officials plan to hire a consultant to study routes for a magnetic levitation train that would link Baltimore and Washington.