Rush Hour

If you plan to drive anywhere around Baltimore tomorrow, test your preparedness with this multiple-choice quiz:Thousands of motorists will converge on highways for (a) an Orioles game; (b) a Ravens game; (c) a Redskins game; (d) a Beach Boys concert; (e) the start of the Labor Day weekend; (f) all of the above.Against all reasonable odds, the answer is (f). And if you think you know something about traffic tie-ups, brace yourself for a painful education. Demand on Baltimore's highways, buses, subway, light rail and parking lots is expected to reach record intensity.

When Walter M. Russell rises at 5 a.m., only a few headlights pierce the darkness on Route 140 outside his house.While he dresses and shaves, the traffic builds. By the time he leaves to meet his friends for 6 a.m. breakfast at McDonald's in Westminster, something that resembles a single creature with hundreds of unblinking white eyes is crawling east along the highway.In the afternoon, when rush-hour traffic is on his side of the road, "You sit and wait. You wait for the gap. You'll get so many seconds, and you can slip out," Russell said.

When Walter M. Russell rises at 5 a.m., only a few headlights pierce the darkness on Route 140 outside his house.While he dresses and shaves, the traffic builds. By the time he leaves to meet his friends for 6 a.m. breakfast at McDonald's in Westminster, something that resembles a single creature with hundreds of unblinking white eyes is crawling east along the highway.In the afternoon, when rush-hour traffic is on his side of the road, ``You sit and wait. You wait for the gap. You'll get so many seconds, and you can slip out,'' Russell said.

On a day when clear skies and dry roads should have afforded drivers a safe and easy commute, more than a dozen accidents ensnared thousands of motorists yesterday, leaving one driver dead and creating a 10-mile backup in Interstate 95.The accidents affected both ends of the daily commute, with one deadly crash crushing a car between two trucks and snarling evening rush hour -- jamming some of the same motorists frustrated by the morning accident on I-95."It...

20 wins- UP- Mike Mussina's dark-horse run at a Cy Young Award and 20 wins took a shot to the right shoulder last weekend from Brook Fordyce, and he'll probably miss two starts. No wonder Moose is a multiple Gold Glove winner. He gets more practice than anyone at his position.Jay Witasick- UP- The Kansas City Royals right-hander and Bel Air native realized every local kid's dream Thursday night: to grow up, pitch for a small-market franchise going nowhere and shut out the Orioles. Four singles vs. a guy with an ERA higher than the national debt.

An accident involving two tractor-trailers and another truck forced police to close all four northbound lanes of Interstate 95 near Interstate 395 yesterday at the height of rush hour, causing a traffic nightmare for commuters.The accident occurred about 4: 55 p.m. when a tractor-trailer carrying appliances for Heartland Express, based in Coralville, Iowa, stopped in the far-right lane because of rush-hour congestion, Kerry Brandt, a spokeswoman for the Maryland Transportation Authority police, said.

A city traffic study at a Roland Park intersection described by some neighbors as dangerous shows evidence of minor speeding over the posted limit of 25 mph.Some residents fault the study because it was not conducted during peak rush hours.Kurt L. Kocher, spokesman for the Department of Public Works, said the study indicates westbound traffic at the intersection of Schenley Road and West Cold Spring Lane averages 30 mph, while eastbound traffic averages 28 mph.The study was done a week ago between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m., Kocher said, with the speed of 200 vehicles -- 100 in each direction -- timed with a radar gun."

An accident triggered by a police cruiser's emergency lights accidentally going off closed the northbound lanes of Interstate 95 for most of yesterday's morning rush hour and left two people injured.Traffic headed into the city was diverted off I-95 and onto Caton Avenue, causing significant delays and backups.Lori Vidil, a spokeswoman for the Maryland Transportation Authority Police, responsible for patrolling the highway between the Beltway exits, said the crash occurred about 5: 30 a.m. All lanes of the highway were reopened at 9: 04 a.m.Vidil said Tracy Adams, 31, a federal police officer who works at the U.S. Customs office in Baltimore, hit a bump with his Ford cruiser in the high-speed lane south of Exit 51, or Washington Boulevard.

They look like police officers, they act like police officers, and since yesterday, they can write you a ticket like a police officer.They are the blue-clad, official-looking "traffic directors" who guide commuters at the city's busiest intersections during rush hour. Now with the help of a new law, these traffic directors can issue citations for running red lights and disobeying directives and other moving violations."This gives the officers a tool to persuade the public to do what it is supposed to do," said Dave L. Montgomery, deputy director of the Baltimore Department of Public Works.

Spotty sleet and rain made Central Maryland roads slick during morning rush hour yesterday, causing at least one fatal accident, several road closures and scores of collisions. Slippery roads played a part in the death of Mary Lynne Schubert, 49, of Annapolis, police said. Her 1989 Buick was struck by a 1987 Chevrolet Celebrity about 7:30 a.m. as she drove away from Lowry's gas station on Forest Drive in Annapolis. Ms. Schubert was taken by helicopter to Prince George's Trauma Center, where she died at 8:40 a.m.The other driver, whose name was not released by police, was taken to Anne Arundel Medical Center with leg injuries.

Rob Gonzalez seldom gets caught in the gridlock that snarls Route 30 in Hampstead each weekday morning - neither would you if you got to work at 3:30 a.m. But rush hour is another matter. "It can take 20 minutes to go three miles; you literally have to plan for that," said Gonzalez, owner of Snickerdoodles, a bakery-cafe on Route 30. During rush hour, he and other local residents all but avoid the road frequented by ex-Marylanders who now live as far as 15 miles to the north in Hanover, Pa., but still work and do business here.

Public transportation can and should be a great thing in any city; it just takes a little marketing, a little money and a sincere interest and commitment to customer service. I have been using the Maryland Transit Administration's light rail system for my daily commute for three years. There are many positive aspects to public transport: less gas usage, less air pollution, less congestion on the highways, less road rage, camaraderie with other riders and a generally peaceful, efficient way back to the suburbs.

For some people, the urge to compete is very, very strong, such as the tall, red-haired woman last Sunday morning at LaGuardia airport who cut in front of me at the boarding gate and did it so smoothly, expertly, no body contact, you have to assume she's been acing people out all her life. She was standing behind me and then alongside and then, although I was moving forward behind the old lady in front of me, Red Riding Hood planted her right foot in front of my left foot and leaned over and handed her ticket to the gate agent and, without a murmur of apology or explanation, she slipped into the jetway.

As subway operator Jimmy Hardnett approached the Owings Mills Metro station one blazing-hot day last week, he slowed the train to a lumbering 20 mph as it approached a section where trains can switch from one track to another. It's a crawl that's all too familiar to users of Baltimore's nearly 25-year-old subway system. But tomorrow at 8 p.m., the Maryland Transit Administration will close the subway's northernmost section for 16 days to replace that crossover - called an interlocking - and make other improvements to the Owings Mills station.

BGE workers fixed the ruptured gas main yesterday that caused dowtown street closures and rush-hour traffic tie-ups but have yet to determine the exact cause of the leaks. "We don't know what, if anything, we will be able to determine conclusively," Linda Foy, a spokeswoman for BGE, said yesterday. Workers completed repairs about 3 p.m. yesterday. Charles Street at Pratt and Lombard streets was reopened at 3:30 p.m., in time for the evening rush hour. The streets were closed Thursday during afternoon and evening rush hour after gas leaks sent two manhole covers into the air. Metal plates were placed over the areas where the repairs were made, and the area will be repaved this weekend, a spokesman for the Department of Transportation said.

QUESTION: When is a news bulletin not exactly a news bulletin? Answer: When it's about the horrible traffic congestion in Baltimore, which is news only if you've been homebound or in the slammer the past 20 years. Maybe you read the front-page story in the paper the other day that said Baltimore again ranked among the Top 20 worst-congested cities. If you're scoring at home, we came in at No. 17. L.A., San Francisco and Washington won the trifecta as the worst traffic-nightmare cities.

Snow showers and slick roads early yesterday morning caused numerous accidents in the area, snarled traffic and kept some children out of school. A weak system in the upper atmosphere, combined with northwest winds and moisture coming from the Great Lakes was just enough to cause the light snow, said Nikole Listemaa, a senior forecaster with the National Weather Service. There was little to no accumulation, she said, but temperatures in the low to mid-20s helped create perfect conditions for icy roads.

WE REALLY get to know the roads we encounter on our daily commutes. But for Randall Bieganski, who commutes between his home in Ellicott City and his workplace on the outskirts of Baltimore, to know those roads is not to love them. He describes his commute on Interstate 70 between the Patapsco River bridge and the Baltimore Beltway as a trip through "crash alley." "I am riding on borrowed time. It is only a matter of time until I, too, will be collected up in a multicar pile-up caused by some impatient, discourteous driver," he said.

To say Kevin Miller is unhappy is an understatement. Miller, who lives in Annapolis but works on the Eastern Shore, commutes across the Bay Bridge every day. Now, his 25-minute drive home -- with his 3-year-old daughter Elizabeth squirming in her car seat -- takes more than twice that long in bumper-to-bumper traffic. A botched paving job has left just one westbound lane open during evening rush hour. "It doesn't make me feel good about the planning that went into this," Miller says of the Maryland Transportation Authority's latest attempts to get the concrete to stick.

To say Kevin Miller is unhappy is an understatement. Miller, who lives in Annapolis but works on the Eastern Shore, commutes across the Bay Bridge every day. Now, his 25-minute drive home -- with his 3-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, squirming in her car seat -- takes more than twice that long in bumper-to-bumper traffic. A botched paving job has left just one westbound lane open during evening rush hour. "It doesn't make me feel good about the planning that went into this," Miller says of the Maryland Transportation Authority's latest attempts to get the concrete to stick.