I-895 (Baltimore Harbor Tunnel Thruway)

[jmacswimmer]

I honestly do not see how weekend closures of I-895 right now to remove the toll plaza would be absolutely brutal to Baltimore through traffic, but that is just me.

I don't see why weekend closures would be needed at all, other than for a random few occasions. Plazas all over the US have been removed and its rare to need closures. The 895 plaza is wide enough to keep traffic in the middle lanes while the outer lanes are demolished, then shift traffic to the outside while the middle lanes are demolished. Pretty standard stuff.

Then again you can see the I-95 toll lanes further north were demolished, yet they oddly left a few toll island ramparts. It's like they did 99.3% of the work, then sloppily walkwd away from the final few days worth of demolishing.  I assume there was a tunnel underneath the lanes; not sure if that's still remains in that area.

I recall the JFK Highway conversion being marketed as "interim highway-speed AET" during construction, so it seems the intent was always to do the minimum possible there for some reason with the intent to finish the work later. Although I don't know why it was necessary to do it that way when all the other MDTA conversions were done "fully", and what they would be waiting for now to finish the conversion.

https://mdta.maryland.gov/JFK-Highway - sure enough, "The project will implement highway-speed AET at the JFK toll plaza on an interim basis until permanent AET conversion can be studied, designed, and constructed."

Re: 895, they absolutely could remove the toll plaza without closures. As it stands, heading northbound the 3 middle toll lanes are already semi-permanently closed and barreled off (in an attempt to ease the bottleneck past the booths made worse by the Key Bridge), and that's probably where they'd start demolition anyway. The removals at Fort McHenry Tunnel, Bay Bridge, & Tydings Bridge all started with just enough of the middle lanes/booths to then route traffic thru. (And in the case of the Tydings Bridge, that's where the lanes still are.)

[1995hoo]

Good call on delaying the project until after the new Key Bridge has been built and opened to traffic. And with I-95's own toll plaza having been demolished and replaced with a toll gantry, the erecting of the new I-895 toll gantry means that all three crossings will now have their respective ones on the same side of the river (not counting the ones at Childs Street), whereas the old toll plaza on I-895 was the only one that was on the opposite side of those on I-95 and I-695.

With all due respect, what difference does it make whether the toll collection points are on the same side of the river?

[boilerup25]

Good call on delaying the project until after the new Key Bridge has been built and opened to traffic. And with I-95's own toll plaza having been demolished and replaced with a toll gantry, the erecting of the new I-895 toll gantry means that all three crossings will now have their respective ones on the same side of the river (not counting the ones at Childs Street), whereas the old toll plaza on I-895 was the only one that was on the opposite side of those on I-95 and I-695.

With all due respect, what difference does it make whether the toll collection points are on the same side of the river?

Probably has something to do with the location of exit ramps.