Maryland

[cpzilliacus]

marylandreporter.com: Replacing Maryland E-ZPass transponder is not so easy

Now that Gov. Hogan announced a new  customer service initiative on Thursday, a good place to start might be with E-ZPass toll system and making it easier to replace a dead transponder.

Transponders are those little white boxes that transmit the information to the antenna that collect the toll automatically. The transponder on my wife's Honda Accord stopped working a few weeks ago.

Knowing what we know now, I should have probably just ordered a new transponder online from the E-ZPass website, paid $9 and got it in the mail.

[ixnay]

A dispute between a Berlin, MD business and and a hardware store...

http://mdcoastdispatch.com/2016/06/16/landowner-berlin-at-odds-again-over-road-closure/

ixnay

[cpzilliacus]

Baltimore Sun: After millions spent on improvements to highway, stream, White Marsh business owners say flooding has worsened

Business owners in White Marsh are suing Baltimore County and the state over highway improvements and environmental projects that they say have caused chronic flooding on their properties.

The Maryland Transportation Authority spent $1.08 billion widening Interstate 95, adding express toll lanes and reconfiguring exit ramps between Interstate 895 and White Marsh Boulevard. Baltimore County has spent $15.5 million on White Marsh Run over the past two years.

The work was intended to improve the flow of highway traffic through the area and reduce runoff into local waterways. County officials say the stream restoration was designed so that it could not increase the flooding downstream. But property owners say flooding has worsened.

[cpzilliacus]

Washington Post: Hogan says he'll keep fighting Democrats over funding road projects

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) said Tuesday night that he plans to continue to fight the Democratic-controlled legislature over the funding of transportation road projects and enlisted the help of local elected officials to join him.

During a 10-minute address before a crowd of about 700 people attending a dinner at the Maryland Municipal League Convention in Ocean City, Hogan said "we can not and will not let"  the General Assembly hinder road and bridge repairs.

"We're going to keep fighting to make sure these priority road projects in every jurisdiction continue to move forward,"  Hogan said. "But we need our municipal and our county officials, each and every one of you, to stand with us so our roads and highways don't go back down a path of neglect and under investment."

[Alps]

Found this sign in Upper Fairmount. It's almost faded through - a store logo, or gasoline logo, or something similar. I can make out a globe and a few letters - C___ch___c(h or l)... nothing clear enough. Anyone have any idea?
https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/13516669_1224964104204678_1810761583809353480_n.jpg?oh=bf239f0e60b4a2716e9bd87df324003b&oe=57EB1C44


...It might say "Church of Life"?

[cpzilliacus]

Found this sign in Upper Fairmount. It's almost faded through - a store logo, or gasoline logo, or something similar. I can make out a globe and a few letters - C___ch___c(h or l)... nothing clear enough. Anyone have any idea?
https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/13516669_1224964104204678_1810761583809353480_n.jpg?oh=bf239f0e60b4a2716e9bd87df324003b&oe=57EB1C44


...It might say "Church of Life"?

Does not look even slightly familiar.  Was going to guess an old-style Gulf sign, but it's not, nor is it an old-style Flying A sign (Flying A was a chain of gas stations that went away in the 1960's).

[CVski]

I think I see "Chesapeake".

[Alps]

I think I see "Chesapeake".

You are wise for 13 posts.

[slorydn1]

Found this sign in Upper Fairmount. It's almost faded through - a store logo, or gasoline logo, or something similar. I can make out a globe and a few letters - C___ch___c(h or l)... nothing clear enough. Anyone have any idea?
https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/13516669_1224964104204678_1810761583809353480_n.jpg?oh=bf239f0e60b4a2716e9bd87df324003b&oe=57EB1C44


...It might say "Church of Life"?

It almost but not quite looks like this:

[TheOneKEA]

54 years ago this week, the Baltimore Beltway opened to traffic. The SHA posted the following photo to their Instagram account:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BHhi86JBFrG/

[cpzilliacus]

Washington Post: After more than half a century, bridge designer calls it quits. Maybe.

When Earle "Jock"  Freedman, 86, finally decided to retire in June, the memorabilia in his desk at the Maryland State Highway Administration included the calculations he did in 1951 for his first bridge design.

"I still had the computations, page after page, and all I had to work with was a $12 slide rule,"  he recalled. "No computers, but we were able to do the right thing."

For more than 65 years, travelers have depended on Freedman to do the right thing in designing and maintaining 2,570 bridges under the State Highway Administration's supervision.

[ixnay]

54 years ago this week, the Baltimore Beltway opened to traffic.

Fifteen years before the circle became unbroken with the opening of the Key Bridge.

The SHA posted the following photo to their Instagram account:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BHhi86JBFrG/

That pic is of the Loch Raven Blvd./Cromwell Bridge Road interchange, looking nw on I-695 towards Providence Road.  Rather countrified, then, that stretch.  IIRC steel wheeled trolleys still ran up MD 45 to the courthouse in Towson from downtown in those days, but the Maryland & Pennsylvania Railroad, abandoned from North Ave. in Baltimore up to Delta, PA in 1958, had already been taken up (Google Satellite still shows what looks like the old Ma & Pa right of way along Cromwell Bridge where it meets the Beltway and Loch Raven).

ixnay

[Mergingtraffic]

A colored US-shield in Baltimore?



I also saw a construction sign about a bridge across US-40 and the community around the US-40 expressway stub. 
I couldn't find any more info about it.

[Mergingtraffic]

A couple years ago somebody posted pics of old signs in a Maryland DOT sign shop. Anybody know the link to it?

[1995hoo]

A couple years ago somebody posted pics of old signs in a Maryland DOT sign shop. Anybody know the link to it?

It was cpzilliacus.

[Rothman]

Washington Post: After more than half a century, bridge designer calls it quits. Maybe.

When Earle "Jock"  Freedman, 86, finally decided to retire in June, the memorabilia in his desk at the Maryland State Highway Administration included the calculations he did in 1951 for his first bridge design.

"I still had the computations, page after page, and all I had to work with was a $12 slide rule,"  he recalled. "No computers, but we were able to do the right thing."

Probably still did designs on paper when he retired.  Got a problem here at NYSDOT with old engineers and other fuddy-duddies not willing to enter the latter-half of the 20th Century by going digital.

[cpzilliacus]

Baltimore Sun op-ed: Why did Va. win transportation grants when Md. didn't?

[cl94]

Washington Post: After more than half a century, bridge designer calls it quits. Maybe.

When Earle "Jock"  Freedman, 86, finally decided to retire in June, the memorabilia in his desk at the Maryland State Highway Administration included the calculations he did in 1951 for his first bridge design.

"I still had the computations, page after page, and all I had to work with was a $12 slide rule,"  he recalled. "No computers, but we were able to do the right thing."

Probably still did designs on paper when he retired.  Got a problem here at NYSDOT with old engineers and other fuddy-duddies not willing to enter the latter-half of the 20th Century by going digital.

Let me guess: they're the same ones who resist distance-based numbering?

[7/8]

Washington Post: After more than half a century, bridge designer calls it quits. Maybe.

When Earle "Jock"  Freedman, 86, finally decided to retire in June, the memorabilia in his desk at the Maryland State Highway Administration included the calculations he did in 1951 for his first bridge design.

"I still had the computations, page after page, and all I had to work with was a $12 slide rule,"  he recalled. "No computers, but we were able to do the right thing."

Probably still did designs on paper when he retired.  Got a problem here at NYSDOT with old engineers and other fuddy-duddies not willing to enter the latter-half of the 20th Century by going digital.

Let me guess: they're the same ones who resist distance-based numbering?

This reminds me of my boss at the MTO, who still insists on using Reverse Polish Notation calculators. I'd never even heard of these, and it seems more confusing to me.

[Roadrunner75]

This reminds me of my boss at the MTO, who still insists on using Reverse Polish Notation calculators. I'd never even heard of these, and it seems more confusing to me.

I use that on my calculator.  The first calculator I was given at work was an HP48GX and I had to get used to it.  I've been using the same model for about 19 years (still on the second one), and I now have trouble using a regular calculator.

[cpzilliacus]

This reminds me of my boss at the MTO, who still insists on using Reverse Polish Notation calculators. I'd never even heard of these, and it seems more confusing to me.

I use that on my calculator.  The first calculator I was given at work was an HP48GX and I had to get used to it.  I've been using the same model for about 19 years (still on the second one), and I now have trouble using a regular calculator.

My Dad, a real structural engineer, swears by reverse polish calculators.

[cpzilliacus]

Washington Post: Study says traffic has improved on some sections of the Capital Beltway, but don't get excited

[cpzilliacus]

Baltimore Sun: Lawmakers concerned over millions in cost overruns on Baltimore contracts

Some infrastructure in Baltimore, founded in 1729, is more than a century old. Water mains break frequently. Sinkholes suddenly appear in roads. Two dozen bridges in the city have been deemed structurally deficient – an early warning that they are in poor condition – and about 40 percent of the city's streets are "substandard," transportation officials say.

From 2012 to 2014, contract overruns cost Baltimore, state and federal taxpayers – along with local water bill payers – $18.3 million to $19.6 million per year. In 2015, the overruns rose to $30.9 million. Halfway through 2016, they've have cost about $18.5 million.

[cpzilliacus]

A couple years ago somebody posted pics of old signs in a Maryland DOT sign shop. Anybody know the link to it?

Hosted on Facebook: Maryland DOT/SHA/OOTS - traffic signs and the sign shop

[cpzilliacus]

WTOP Radio: Major I-895 bridge project underway

Due to construction, the right lane on northbound Interstate 895 across the Patapsco River Flats bridge will be closed continuously for a major repair project.

The Baltimore bridge between Exit 4/Md. 295 and Exit 6/I-97 and Md. 2 spur.