Anyone know what the deal is with the Canton Viaduct replacement project?
Has it fallen victim to the toll cuts that Larry Hogan pushed through? As best as I can tell, it has not shown up on
e-Maryland Marketplace (where state (and most county and municipal) construction projects are advertised for bids).
Back in November 2014, the Sun
reported that the project would be under way in 2016, which is at this point an impossibility.
Looking at the Web site of the Baltimore Metropolitan Council (BMC) (the Baltimore Regional Transportation Board, the Metropolitan Planning Organization for Baltimore and suburbs, is housed at BMC), it appears that the project to make I-95 four lanes both ways from the I-95/I-895 "split" on the northeast side of Baltimore City to the Fort McHenry Tunnel was moved-up from 2030 to 2018, in part because of the Canton Viaduct project. See
this resolution (.pdf), which explicitly justifies the I-95 widening in part because of the Canton Viaduct, though there is no explicit mention of advertising the Canton Viaduct project being delayed.
Reconfigure (restripe) northbound and southbound I-95 to provide four continuous mainline lanes in each direction. Will include reconstructing at-grade shoulders, replacing at-grade median concrete traffic barrier, and reconstructing portions of existing bridge decks and concrete bridge parapets. This will not require any additional widening of the highway. Construction will involve temporary lane closures and night work (to maintain traffic in all lanes during peak travel periods).
2018 (the year of operation in the November 2015 Maximize2040 plan was 2030, and the project originally was tested in the air quality conformity model for 2030)
$51.102 million (year of expenditure) — covered entirely by toll revenues
MDTA is advancing construction work on the Canton Viaduct segment of I-895. MDTA expects that work on the Canton Viaduct will divert traffic from I-895 to I-95. Advancing this I-95 lane reconfiguration project will help to accommodate the diverted traffic. It also will improve safety by providing a higher roadside concrete traffic barrier and bridge parapet