Sidewalks

The National Weather Service is calling for Monday to be rainy in the Baltimore area, with a high near 46 degrees and winds becoming southerly around 6 miles per hour. The chance of precipitation is 90 percent. New rainfall amounts between one tenth of an inch and one quarter of an inch are possible. A freezing rain advisory is in effect until 9 a.m. Monday. The advisory means periods of freezing drizzle will cause slippery roads and light icing on roadways and sidewalks. A small craft advisory is in effect Monday afternoon and evening for the tidal Potomac River from Cobb Island to Smith Point and for the Maryland Chesapeake Bay from North Beach to Smith Point.

Work is going to begin soon on an improvement program for the Main Street area of historic Ellicott City. The program involves adding a new parking lot, landscaping, brick sidewalks and crosswalks, and a rest area with benches and picnic tables. Around $500,000 has been allotted for the project.Main Street, Ellicott City, is an area all Howard countians can be proud of, and if it were not for historic preservation groups, it might have been razed or lost to development a number of years back.

Owners of businesses along a 1.7-mile stretch of Eastern Boulevard in Essex said last night that plans to build a sidewalk would eliminate road shoulders where their customers park and put them out of business.The new sidewalks are included in a nearly $6 million streetscape project, part of an effort to revitalize the county's east side."I look at this proposed plan and I can see my business going down the drain," said Ron Wasner, owner of J&H Tires at 1786 Eastern Boulevard. He spoke at an information meeting sponsored by the Baltimore County Office of Community Conservation at Our Lady of Mount Carmel High School in Essex.

Union Bridge needs crosswalks and wider sidewalks to improve Main Street, a group of residents was told last night. About two dozen people went to the town's community center for a presentation by Union Bridge Main Street Revitalization Committee. The ideas were presented by representatives of the design consultant, Whitney Bailey Cox & Magnani LLP of Baltimore, and the State Highway Administration, which has several similar projects under way in communities throughout the county and the state.

With efforts to rejuvenate a long-maligned but potential-laden section of U.S. 1 creeping forward, Howard County officials and the State Highway Administration unveiled a draft transportation plan that calls for adding paths, sidewalks, side roads, bike lanes, bus lanes, car lanes and a median to deal with increased traffic and use as the corridor grows. At a meeting Monday evening at Elkridge Landing Middle School, planners, designers and engineers laid out a proposal on colorful maps and asked community residents for feedback about how the plans would affect their neighborhoods and what they overlooked or misjudged.

Acknowledging that the timing may be a little unusual, the Mount Airy Town Council has passed a snow-shoveling ordinance. The ordinance requires owners and occupants of properties with paved sidewalks to clear a 30-inch-wide path within 24 hours of a snowfall, with a $25 fine for the first offense and $50 for each subsequent offense. Each day could draw a separate fine, but town officials said Monday night that they favor warnings over fines, especially in the event of a blizzard. "My back can handle that," said resident Gene Anderson of shoveling snow off the 400-foot sidewalk at his home on a corner on Prospect Road.

A brightly banded chameleon, a strongman tattooed in academic symbols and a guy with the gears of his mind exposed all took their places above midtown Wednesday when the University of Baltimore unveiled a series of banners depicting the connection between institution and city. The illustrations are musings on UB's campus slogan, "Knowledge That Works." Officials also hope the 50 banners will be a flamboyant manifestation of the university's overall quest to be more recognized. "The whole idea when I came here was to begin defining our borders," said UB President Robert L. Bogomolny.

For a person who recently traded a Corolla for a Taurus, there is no sight more heartwarming than an SUV stuck in the snow, however briefly. So my thanks to the driver of that shiny black monster -- a Ford beginning with Ex-, Expedition or Excursion or maybe Excessive -- trying to muscle his way out of a Rodgers Forge snowdrift yesterday morning. I was feeling extra smug, because I'd left the Taurus in my own snowdrift, clipped on my 27-year-old cross- country skis and charged off in the general direction of The Sun at Calvert and Centre streets.

Darryl Melvin likes to smoke a cigarette on the sidewalk in front of Mercy Medical Center after he sees his cardiologist - an appointment he keeps every three months. "It eases my nerves," Melvin, 45, said yesterday as he enjoyed his smoke amid butts littering the grounds around the hospital. "I have bad nerves. I have twin 15-year-old boys." But if the Baltimore City Council adopts a bill introduced last night, Melvin would have to cross the street before lighting up. The initiative would create smoke-free zones on sidewalks adjacent to the city's 17 hospitals.

If Baltimoreans notice a new spring in their step, it might just be the sidewalks. In a pilot program that officials hope benefits the city's bottom line almost as much as the environment, Baltimore is joining dozens of cities across the country in testing rubber sidewalks - made from used tires - that are less prone to damage from tree roots and ice. Rubber walkways, which were installed yesterday in one-block test sites at the Inner Harbor and in...