A unified crowd of more than 300 Rivers Edge residents Monday night told state highway officials not to limit access to Route 29, the only way in or out of their Howard County community.
The meeting at Atholton High School drew a standing-room-only crowd for the latest State Highway Administration plans to widen northbound Route 29 from the Patuxent River north to Route 175 in Columbia. That four-mile section remains a two-lane road, causing bumper-to-bumper slowdowns every afternoon rush hour. Another meeting on the project is scheduled June 2 at Hammond High School.
"At two lanes it can't handle the traffic today," state engineer Derrick Gunn told the crowd. Delays will only grow if nothing is done, he said.
Despite that, SHA district engineer David J. Coyne said construction is at least three years away, and there is currently no money set aside for what could be a $100 million project. A lack of money in 2006 and 2007 shoved a proposed tunnel under southbound Route 29 off the table, officials said, leaving them fewer options.
Stephanie Cates-Harman presented state officials with hastily gathered petitions signed by 464 residents from 363 homes who oppose options that would remove their ability to cross Route 29 traffic to travel north when exiting, or to enter the community from the south. A traffic light on the southbound side now allows them those movements.
"I want you to know these people are committed, focused and engaged," she told a group of highway officials as elected officials looked on. Cates-Harman said she volunteered to prepare her 20-minute presentation on the community's behalf.
The widening and addition of sound walls mean possible elimination of the southbound traffic light at Rivers Edge, just south of Route 32. Since that light allows 1,000 residents a way to cross traffic lanes to go north or to safely cross traffic to enter the community from the south, residents were adamant about blocking its removal or returning to the 1987 proposal to build the tunnel.
Mike Collison, 60, came up with a new idea, complete with a professional-looking map showing a bridge from a hilltop at Vista Road at the community's north end across Route 29 to Old Columbia Road as a new alternative. Collison said he and his wife, Karen, were hit head-on in February by a southbound driver who swerved into them while they sat at the current traffic light, waiting to turn into their community. A car that slowed to honor a fire engine's flashing lights caused the other driver to swerve, he said.
"This intersection has got to go," he said.
One state option would force traffic to exit southbound and use the Johns Hopkins Road interchange, a two-and-a-half-mile detour, if they wanted to turn and go north. To enter Rivers Edge from the south, residents would have to drive past it to Route 32 and use that interchange to turn around. Three of the four current options would limit residents' movements to the north or to go east on Route 32. The fourth is the standard "no build" option to leave things as they are, though that is not the state's intent.
"The goal is for 29 to be a controlled access highway," SHA official Eric Marbello said.
Oliver Bartlett, 83, said he has lived in Rivers Edge since 1959 and remembers attending meetings about the Route 29 access 23 years ago.
"Everybody agreed to the underpass," he recalled, pointing out that two-thirds of residents leaving the community each morning are heading north on Route 29. Another resident noted that the nearest hospital is in Columbia, again to the north.
Sam Brown, 45, a 14-year resident, complained about the paucity of the four options.
"Either do nothing, or dumb, dumber or dumbest," he said to applause and laughter.
Cates-Harman said the options "are neither safe nor reasonable."
"Those were rejected [in 1987] by your own department's experts," she said.
State legislators said they came to listen but are already talking to state transportation officials behind the scenes.
"I can guarantee you those four won't be the only options," said state Sen. James N. Robey, who — like fellow attendees Dels. Guy Guzzone, Shane Pendergrass, Frank Turner and Elizabeth Bobo, all Democrats — is seeking re-election. Ed Priola, a Republican candidate for the House of Delegates, also attended, as did County Councilwoman Mary Kay Sigaty and her Democratic primary opponent, Alan Klein.
"We have heard you and we're going back to the drawing board," replied Russ Anderson, a transportation engineer from the state's Office of Planning and Preliminary Engineering.
Several residents made an unusual point — that speeding traffic along Route 29 makes driving more dangerous and ultimately causes more delays by attracting more vehicles.
"We are making 29 a very desirable way to travel," said Linda Tom, 60, a 24-year commuter who lives in River's Edge. People, including drivers of large trucks, are beginning to use the highway as an alternative to I-95, she said. "We're not any safer or faster," she added. She wants the traffic light at River's Edge to stop traffic on Route 29 in both directions to allow residents safe access and egress, while slowing drivers who often hit 75 miles per hour when they can.
"It's reasonable and cheap. I love that traffic light," she said.