Commissioners point to their biggest road worries

Several projects on highway wish list

Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2008

While the state’s six-year transportation plan has been reduced by $1.1 billion to $9.4 billion, bridge and pavement preservation won’t be chopped, said John Porcari, secretary of transportation.

Commissioner Larry Jarboe (R), who represents the northern county, noted the bad condition of Route 236, Thompson Corner Road. ‘‘It’s a unique road,” he said because it serves as a cross-county connector, serves large trucks for gravel operations and also serves the Amish community. ‘‘The road’s breaking up,” he said.

That road from Ryceville Road to Route 5 is being looked at this fiscal year, said Greg Welker, district engineer for the Maryland State Highway Administration.

Commissioner Thomas A. Mattingly Sr. (D), who represents the Hollywood⁄Leonardtown area, said motorists are driving too fast on Route 5 between Hollywood Road and Newtowne Neck Road. The road there has no shoulders and there have been a lot of accidents on that stretch, he said. ‘‘It just continues on and on and on,” he said. He suggested more police enforcement to slow the traffic down. He described a near miss where another motorist cut him off. ‘‘I was a sitting duck for the guy and it happens everyday.”

Commission President Francis Jack Russell (D) suggested that Route 4 be looked at. That road isn’t even in the state’s six-year plan. ‘‘We should take a look at it,” said Neil Pederson, administrator of state highway. But he said that realistically it will be several years before any funding will be available to add any capacity to the road.

Commissioner Daniel H. Raley (D) once again brought up Route 5 in Scotland where the road narrows, with no shoulders, flanked by deep ditches. Raley called it a ‘‘paved-over cow path. It is a bad, bad stretch of road.” He asked if money saved from property acquisition on Chancellor’s Run Road could be used at Route 5, a $1.3 million project. Porcari said he cannot guarantee there will be any money for it in the next two years. The engineering is half done.

The state officials described projects that are still moving forward. Now a $55.5 million project because of $7 million in savings from property acquisition, the expansion of Chancellor’s Run Road is well under way and 90 percent of the right of way has been acquired, Pederson said. An elevated culvert is being installed at the road’s dip at Jarboesville Run and work to create a divided four-lane road should be done by the end of 2010, he said.

The study of a new⁄replacement span of the Gov. Thomas Johnson Memorial Bridge continues. Estimates are around $600 million.

Back on Route 5 from Hollywood Road to Newtowne Neck Road, a study is under way to add a center turn lane to the road. Pederson said it could result in 20 or more displacements of homes and businesses on the roadside.