Maryland

[cpzilliacus]

Baltimore Sun: State Police to inspect commercial vehicles on D.C.-area roadways

Washington Post: Trucks get the eye in annual massive safety inspection

To a child in love with trucks, the parade that rolled through a Landover parking lot Tuesday might have been better than the march of the elephants.

Dump trucks, tractor-trailers, moving vans, tank trucks, car carriers, tow trucks, delivery vans, a tow truck pulling a truck, a flatbed truck loaded with a shiny red farm harvester and another sagging with the weight of an enormous crane.

Waved off the inner loop of the Capital Beltway by insistent Maryland state troopers, they entered the lot near FedEx Field by the hundreds, where teams of state police inspectors waited to check them out in an annual ritual repeated this week at almost 2,500 locations nationwide.

Trucks are inspected every day in the United States, sometimes at the side of the road and often at truck weighing stations, and the blitz of inspections every June is intended to showcase the process and underscore its importance.

[MASTERNC]

Speed cameras are continuing their trek west from the Baltimore-Washington area.  Now cameras will be focused on I-68 in Cumberland.  Oddly enough, they will be enforcing a 55 MPH speed limit, even though I believe the work zone enters a normally 40 MPH zone.

Cumberland Times News: Speeders: Say Cheese

Speed cameras will be installed for the first time in Allegany County on eastbound Interstate 68 in the area west of U.S. Route 220 to east of Kelly Road as part of the Maryland State Highway Administration's SafeZones program.

Beginning Monday, warnings will be issued for an initial 21-day period through June 30.

SHA is rehabilitating the I-68 bridges over Kelly Road and Patterson Avenue, a project that includes a complete replacement of the driving surfaces, as well as additional work, to extend the life of the nearly 50-year-old structures.

[cpzilliacus]

For some reason, there are a lot of fatal wrecks on the Capital Beltway (I-95/I-495) between Exit 2 (I-295, near the  Wilson Bridge) and Exit 19 (U.S. 50, John Hanson Highway). Here's the latest, at Ritchie-Marlboro Road.

WTOP Radio: Fatal accident shuts down Beltway's Outer Loop

[Alps]

Speed cameras will be installed for the first time in Allegany County on eastbound Interstate 68 in the area west of U.S. Route 220 to east of Kelly Road as part of the Maryland State Highway Administration's SafeZones program.

Beginning Monday, warnings will be issued for an initial 21-day period through June 30.

Now's your chance to speed recklessly and get a free warning to put up on your wall!

[MASTERNC]

Speed cameras will be installed for the first time in Allegany County on eastbound Interstate 68 in the area west of U.S. Route 220 to east of Kelly Road as part of the Maryland State Highway Administration's SafeZones program.

Beginning Monday, warnings will be issued for an initial 21-day period through June 30.

Now's your chance to speed recklessly and get a free warning to put up on your wall!

I'd take one if I lived anywhere near there.  I never get through one of those camera zones in the warning period (even so, there might not be a camera there).

[cpzilliacus]

I have to think someone was going way too fast, even if the Nissan (presumably) did not have the right-of-way.

WTOP Radio: Police ID 3 family members killed in Aspen Hill collision

[algorerhythms]

Speed cameras are continuing their trek west from the Baltimore-Washington area.  Now cameras will be focused on I-68 in Cumberland.  Oddly enough, they will be enforcing a 55 MPH speed limit, even though I believe the work zone enters a normally 40 MPH zone.

Cumberland Times News: Speeders: Say Cheese

Speed cameras will be installed for the first time in Allegany County on eastbound Interstate 68 in the area west of U.S. Route 220 to east of Kelly Road as part of the Maryland State Highway Administration's SafeZones program.

Beginning Monday, warnings will be issued for an initial 21-day period through June 30.

SHA is rehabilitating the I-68 bridges over Kelly Road and Patterson Avenue, a project that includes a complete replacement of the driving surfaces, as well as additional work, to extend the life of the nearly 50-year-old structures.

It looks like the area the cameras are covering stops just short of the change into the 40-mph speed limit near the Johnson Street exit, if I'm reading the article correctly.

[cpzilliacus]

Baltimore Sun: Back Story: Bay Bridge was 45 years in the making
Wars, haggling and funding issues were obstacles in building the span

My colleague, Candy Thomson, recently reported that a study will soon evaluate the structural condition and projected life left in the Bay Bridge, while also considering the possible addition of a third span to accommodate traffic demands that will soar by 2025.

The first span that bound the Eastern and Western Shores opened for traffic in 1952. It had been troubled by 45 years of haggling, vanished funding and public debate that was additionally fueled by doubters, controversy, economic downturns and wars.

[cpzilliacus]

TOLLROADSnews: Traffic on Maryland's MD200 ICC picking up nicely - growth 32% to 34% over a year

New traffic data for the Washington area Inter County Connector MD200 tollroad shows traffic running about a third higher than a year ago. April traffic at 35,500 vehicles per segment workdays was up 34% over 26,400 of the same month last year. And the first four months of this year were up 32% over the same four months last year.

Average workday trips per segment in the first four months of this year were 32,825 vs 24,730 in the same four months of 2012. MdTA provided us raw data by days and the table required considerable manipulation in Excel to get average monthly workday averages shown. The tollroad basically has five segments or stretches between interchanges and five mainline toll gantry points (see map nearby.)

[iwishiwascanadian]

The Baltimore Sun had a short video on it's website about the SHA making road signs.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/videogallery/76310541/Producing-signs-for-Md-State-Highway-Administration-Video

[jeffandnicole]

Speed cameras will be installed for the first time in Allegany County on eastbound Interstate 68 in the area west of U.S. Route 220 to east of Kelly Road as part of the Maryland State Highway Administration's SafeZones program.

Beginning Monday, warnings will be issued for an initial 21-day period through June 30.

Now's your chance to speed recklessly and get a free warning to put up on your wall!

We were driving thru this area Monday and I was able to get my wife to slow down just as we saw one of the ticketing SUVs off on the right shoulder.  If I realized it was only a test period, I'd had her hit the gas instead!

[kj3400]

The Baltimore Sun had a short video on it's website about the SHA making road signs.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/videogallery/76310541/Producing-signs-for-Md-State-Highway-Administration-Video

It amazes me how even with technology we still get crap signs.

[cpzilliacus]

Shame. That was a nice train. Also, that crossing should have at least had lights, though I'm sure there's some logical reason behind it not having them.

Baltimore Sun: Rosedale train derailment leads to suit against truck driver - CSX alleges that John Jacob Alban failed to slow his truck and look for trains

[cpzilliacus]

WTOP Radio: Tolls go up across Md. on bridges, tunnels, roads

[Alex]

WTOP Radio: Tolls go up across Md. on bridges, tunnels, roads

Tolls also increased for people using E-ZPass. Rates went from 75 cents to $1.40 on the Harbor Tunnel, Fort McHenry Tunnel and the Key Bridge. On the Bay Bridge and Gov. Harry W. Nice Memorial Bridge, tolls went from $1 to $2.10. On I-95 and the Thomas J. Hatem Memorial Bridge, tolls went from $1.50 to $2.80.

These figures must be the commuter rates (ones requiring something like 30 crossings a month), right?

[cpzilliacus]

WTOP Radio: Tolls go up across Md. on bridges, tunnels, roads

Tolls also increased for people using E-ZPass. Rates went from 75 cents to $1.40 on the Harbor Tunnel, Fort McHenry Tunnel and the Key Bridge. On the Bay Bridge and Gov. Harry W. Nice Memorial Bridge, tolls went from $1 to $2.10. On I-95 and the Thomas J. Hatem Memorial Bridge, tolls went from $1.50 to $2.80.

These figures must be the commuter rates (ones requiring something like 30 crossings a month), right?

I think that may be correct.

I don't recall that they have ever given me or my family any discounts (we don't use any  of the MdTA facilities with commuter plans frequently enough to bother, and I don't think there will ever be one for Md. 200).

[cpzilliacus]

AP via the Washington Post: O'Malley announces $650M in Prince George's County transportation plans

O'Malley noted the projects have been made possible by a gas tax increase that was approved in the legislative session. It is Maryland's first gas tax increase in two decades.

The biggest item is $280 million to complete right-of-way acquisition and final design for the Purple Line, a planned 16-mile light rail line with 21 stations between Bethesda and New Carrollton.

Updated article by a Post reporter: O'Malley outlines new transportation spending in Prince George's

[BrianP]

An interesting use of old road signs:
http://www.marylandroads.com/pages/release.aspx?newsId=1545

The State Highway Administration (SHA) donated more than 5,000 linear feet, or approximately $6,000 worth of aluminum from old road signs to the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to build a complex of greenhouses, a native tree nursery and a 5,000 gallon water storage unit in Frostburg, Allegany County

[cpzilliacus]

WTOP Radio: Md. man gets speed camera ticket after driving under the limit

[cpzilliacus]

MdTA press release: NEW LAW GETS TOUGH ON TOLL VIOLATORS

On July 1, a new law went into effect that should motivate toll violators to pay their overdue tolls.  This law gives the MD Transportation Authority (MDTA) the ability to suspend the vehicle registration of toll violators who choose not to pay their tolls.  MDTA has begun the transition to a new civil citation process to help the agency recoup the money owed by those who use the State's toll facilities and never pay up.

The new law, to be fully implemented in early October 2013, also provides anyone with an unpaid toll prior to July 1, 2013, a unique opportunity to pay their toll balances without having to pay fees.  Toll violators who do not take advantage of the transition period will receive a new Notice of Toll(s) Due (NOTD) under the new law beginning in October for their unpaid tolls and then will be subject to a civil citation and $50 fine for each toll violation.

[lepidopteran]

WAMU:  New Capital Beltway interchange for Greenbelt Metro station?

As much as $7 million will go to building a new interchange off the Beltway to the Greenbelt Metro station...

But isn't there already an interchange to the Greenbelt Metro?  At least there is in the SB direction; NB traffic has to exit at Kenilworth/MD-201 and wend through some local roads to get there.  Maybe they mean modifying the interchange to serve both directions?  I did see a diagram for that once, though I forget where.  There's also a plan for the Branch Avenue Metro station, though it's not clear if that will be directly on the Beltway.

Approximately $50 million will fund a new access road and a pedestrian bridge at the Branch Avenue Metro station...

The planned development at the Greenbelt Metro may be seen here

[froggie]

But isn't there already an interchange to the Greenbelt Metro?  At least there is in the SB direction; NB traffic has to exit at Kenilworth/MD-201 and wend through some local roads to get there.  Maybe they mean modifying the interchange to serve both directions?

Yes, that's what they meant.  Currently you can only go to/from the "west" between the Beltway and the Greenbelt Metro.  This proposal would add access to/from the "east".

There's also a plan for the Branch Avenue Metro station, though it's not clear if that will be directly on the Beltway.

Not directly.  Phase 1 of this one did involve the Beltway...it was the interchange improvements at the Beltway and Branch Ave that were finished about 5 years ago.  Phase 2 doesn't involve the Beltway...it converts the Branch Ave/Auth Rd intersection into a right-in/right-out and builds an access road, partway between Auth Rd and Auth Way, from the Metro Station to Branch Ave with ramps to/from southbound Branch Ave...the access road would be bridged over northbound Branch Ave.

[cpzilliacus]

Washington Post: New Md. transportation secretary evaluates how to use gas tax funds

James T. Smith Jr. had no interest in overseeing a state transportation network so tight on money that new roads and transit systems had little chance of being built.

At 71, he had an impressive résumé: seven years on the Baltimore County Council, 16 years as a Circuit Court judge and two terms as Baltimore County's executive. When people close to Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) asked last summer if he'd be interested in heading the state Transportation Department, Smith said he told them "no."

"I just didn't want, at this time in my life, to preside over a department treading water,"  he said recently.

So why is he now Maryland's new transportation secretary?

"The environment changed,"  he said.

With a new state sales tax on gasoline, there is suddenly money to be had – an estimated $4.4 billion in additional revenue over the next six years – and a long wish list of projects that were postponed during the lean years.

[cpzilliacus]

Baltimore Sun: Driver injured when collision sends car into bay - Accident on Bay Bridge closes eastbound lanes

A 22-year-old woman was injured Friday night when a tractor-trailer struck her car and sent it over the railing of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge into the shallow waters near the eastbound start of the span, transportation and fire officials said.

The woman suffered what was believed to be critical but non-life threatening injuries and she was taken by helicopter to the Shock Trauma Center, said Anne Arundel County Fire Department Battalion Chief Steve Thompson.

Washington Post: Car plunges from Chesapeake Bay bridge, woman lives

A woman swam to safety in the Chesapeake Bay Friday night after her car plunged 40 feet off the Bay Bridge following a collision.

The woman was taken by helicopter to the shock trauma unit of the University of Maryland hospital. When rescue personnel reached her she was conscious and breathing, a spokesman for the Anne Arundel county fire department said.

[Mr_Northside]

Baltimore Sun: Driver injured when collision sends car into bay - Accident on Bay Bridge closes eastbound lanes

Damn!