Traffic Light

The Sun would do well to remind Marylanders in this time of power outage that when one approaches an intersection where the light is out, the light is treated as a four-way stop sign. That means you come to a complete stop and yield to the right. many drivers take a gang approach and simply follow the car ahead, forcing the opposing vehicles to inch into intersections until the traffic has to stop or crash. Four-way stop, folks. Four-way stop. Bill Burnham, Baltimore

Seminary Avenue at the light rail crossing in Lutherville is scheduled to be closed for five days beginning 10 a.m. Friday for track and road improvement work, the Maryland Transit Administration announced. Local businesses will remain open and all side streets and residential driveways will remain open. Through traffic along Seminary Avenue in Historic Lutherville will be detoured using Falls Road, the Baltimore Beltway, Charles Street and Bellona Avenue. During track work, MTA will provide shuttle bus service between the Timonium and Falls Road stations beginning Friday at 8 p.m. The rubberized rail crossing is being replaced to improve safety for light rail passengers and motorists on Seminary Avenue.

I have lived off of Centennial Lane for over 20 years. I sent three children to Burleigh Manor Middle and onto Centennial High. We did not need a traffic light in front of the schools. Now tens of thousands of comuters will need to leave 10 minutes earlier for work because of this light. All this money spent in the worst economy in 80 years to satisfy yuppie parents who feel their offspring are too good to ride a school bus or walk two blocks. Dennis Smith Ellicott City

With what appear to be the best of intentions, the Bel Air Town Commissioners took an action this week that is likely to make an already bad traffic situation worse. For many years, residents of English Country Manor, the pleasant little community off of Gateway Drive behind Harford Mall, have complained to the town about what they perceive as the need for a traffic light at the intersection of Gateway Drive and Boulton Street. The commissioners on Monday approved an $85,000 contract to install the light, and it could operational by May, the town's public works director said.

Cynthia Larkins expected to be front and center and yelling "Hallelujah!" when city transportation officials turned on a new $100,000 traffic light Thursday at Wabash and Hillsdale avenues, near her home in Northwest Baltimore's West Arlington neighborhood. "I have only been trying 32 years to get a light at this intersection," said Larkins, 57, a retired federal employee. "And my father tried for years before me. I feel like a kid who was given a candy bar. I am elated for the safety of everybody who drives or walks through here.

The Baltimore Department of Transportation will install a long-sought traffic signal and crosswalk next year on Charles Street near Penn Station to help pedestrians cross the busy northbound street, the city's traffic chief said Tuesday. Traffic division chief Randall Scott said the new signal at Charles and Oliver streets will remain green to northbound Charles Street traffic until a pedestrian pushes a button indicating a desire to cross. The new signal, which will be installed north of Mount Royal Avenue and south of the entrance ramp to Interstate 83, is expected to be in operation as early as February but no later than May, Scott said.

A 36-year-old man was shot and killed Sunday night in East Baltimore when men began shooting from a white van that pulled up alongside him at a traffic light, police said. An officer found Antonio Lamont Lee, 36, in the driver's seat of his vehicle, slumped over the passenger seat. Lee had been waiting at a stop light in a 2010 Acura sedan in the 1400 block of E. Monument St. when the van pulled up and gunmen opened fire, police said. The van turned northbound on Caroline Street then turned west on Madison Street.

With what appear to be the best of intentions, the Bel Air Town Commissioners took an action this week that is likely to make an already bad traffic situation worse. For many years, residents of English Country Manor, the pleasant little community off of Gateway Drive behind Harford Mall, have complained to the town about what they perceive as the need for a traffic light at the intersection of Gateway Drive and Boulton Street. The commissioners on Monday approved an $85,000 contract to install the light, and it could operational by May, the town's public works director said.

Home owners surrounding the new Liberty Exchange office, retail and warehouse development in Eldersburg are hoping to see the traffic light at the entrance of the center at Liberty Road become operational - and sooner than later. Currently, the signal at Exchange Drive and Liberty Road (Route 26) is a blinking yellow light, but residents are concerned about possible accidents as cars attempt to get through the heavily-traveled stretch of Liberty Road. "I have witnessed several close calls during the day, especially when the high school students are dismissed around 2:30 p.m.," said Jen Hoey, president of the nearby Sumner's Hollow home owner association.

The long-awaited traffic light at Gorman Road and U.S. 1 will be activated in early December, according to State Highway Administration officials.Highway officials had expected that it would be spring before they could activate the light, said Gene Straub, an assistant district engineer. But workers at the Freestate Development site -- a project that will include a neighborhood shopping center -- have finished more of the work around Gorman Road and U.S. 1 than highway officials originally had thought, he said.

It wasn't that many years ago that the prospect of relatively few fatal accidents involving drugs or alcohol would have been presumed to coincide with relatively few fatal accidents altogether. As it turns out, the number of deadly vehicle collisions in Harford County in 2012 where drug or alcohol use was believed by police to have been a factor was zero, yet depending on how you count, the number of people killed on roadways in the county in the recently passed year was 31, making it the most deadly year for highway fatalities in about two decades.

The title of Teacher of the Year for Harford County was given to Christina O'Neill, Bel Air Middle School language arts teacher. O'Neill was chosen from the more than 3,200 teachers in the county. Election Day for the Harford County presidential primary had a low turnout. Only about 2.5 percent of the county's 126,00 registered voters bothered out to cast their votes. Main Street in Bel Air hosted the fourth annual Walk A Mile in Her Shoes. Local men donned their finest high heels to raise money for SARC.

As Harford County's law enforcement officials consider whether to start using cameras to enforce speed limits in school zones, they'd do well to consider not only the embarrassing experience of Baltimore City's speed camera program, but also the mixed blessing of Bel Air's red light camera program. When the Town of Bel Air first looked into putting enforcement cameras at traffic light intersections to catch and fine red light runners, it seemed like a great idea. Red light running was rampant at many intersections, and traffic accidents were the result.

Our mayor, the Hon. Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, is asking some people to look into why Baltimore's revenues from speed cameras are remarkably higher than in surrounding jurisdictions. I'm not a task force, but I have a good idea why: People in Baltimore are crappy drivers.  You get ticketed in Baltimore if a speed camera catches you driving more than twelve miles an hour over the posted speed limit. Let me suggest to you that if you are not in labor or bleeding from a gunshot wound, you do not need to go more than twelve miles an hour over the posted speed limit.  Lend me one of those portable cameras to operate in my spare time out along Hillen Road and Perring Parkway near my house, and I'll bring in enough revenue to close the city's budget gap and open a couple of new recreation centers, the cost to be borne by drivers who mistake those streets for the Bonneville salt flats.  Yes, it would be a moneymaker for the city.

The following letter was sent to Planning and Zoning and the Advisory and Development Committee in Harford County government. A copy was provided for publication.    Sir, I would like to express my concerns, which are many, but I will state mostly the ones which have a major negative impact on my community as a homeowner in Bright Oaks. I am mostly concerned about traffic and safety along with other items. Common sense alone as far as traffic, should be enough to stop Walmart to build here.

You may have noticed the quiet in Wordville over the past couple of days. Two things happened on Friday night: the addition of derecho  to the working vocabulary, and the loss of electrical power to Casa McIntyre.  So Sunday and Monday, my regular days off, were devoted not to regaling you with posts but with emptying the refrigerator and freezer, and related tasks. Among the related tasks, following the old Southern method of opening the house at night to allow the cool air in, then closing it up against the heat in the morning, with limited success.

Two elderly people died last night of injuries received when their car was struck broadside at Falls Road and Seminary Avenue near Brooklandville. A traffic light was not working because of the storm that struck the area.Baltimore County police said Joseph R. McIntosh, 85, of the 2800 block of Houck's Mill Road in Monkton, and Kathleen Ness, 86, of the 13700 block of Falls Road in Monkton, were pronounced dead at the Greater Baltimore Medical Center shortly after the 10:55 p.m. crash.Police said a 1986 Chevrolet driven by Elizabeth McIntosh, 70, Joseph McIntosh's wife, was northbound on Falls Road when it was struck on the passenger side by a 1988 Mercury Cougar driven by Anthony R. Paszkiewicz, 59, of the 5200 block of King Ave. near White Marsh.

Some western Howard County residents say they are relieved to see a traffic light installed this week at Ten Oaks Road and Route 32, the site of a collision in April that fatally injured a Glenelg high school teacher."

What would you do if, while sitting behind the wheel of your car at a traffic light, you see a man with a handgun in a shoulder holster approach your vehicle, pound his fist against the driver-side window and release a profane tirade? Would you: a. Lower the window and fire back some expletives; b. Look for an emergency route through the busy intersection in front of you; c. Remain calm and ignore the man until he goes away; d. Call the cops as soon as possible? When this happened to him in Harford County last week, Francesco Grasso chose "c" and "d. " Dr. Grasso is a surgeon with a practice in Baltimore, Towson and Bel Air. He was shaken enough by this display of road rage to contact me and to submit his account as a cautionary tale for other drivers.

Baltimore police are investigating three shootings in the city on Friday night and early Saturday morning, including one that involved a female victim who says she was shot several times inside her vehicle while waiting at a red light. Detective Jeremy Silbert said the 36-year-old woman, who is expected to survive, was shot multiple times in her upper body around 2:42 a.m. in the 3200 block of E. Northern Parkway in Northeast Baltimore. The victim told police that she was stopped at a traffic light when a person pulled up next to her in an unknown vehicle and fired several shots.