Motorists' wheels may often move too fast, but the wheels of government go considerably slower, Elkridge residents learned last night.

A study to determine whether Hanover Road - Elkridge's back door to Baltimore-Washington International Airport and Arundel Mills mall in Anne Arundel County - should be slammed shut likely will not begin for nearly a year, according to William F. Malone Jr., chief of Howard County's traffic division.

A contract to replace a culvert bridge on Loudon Avenue, near the railroad crossing where the county wants to close the road, has been delayed for rebidding. That, in turn, is delaying the study, Malone told about 35 people last night at the Greater Elkridge Community Association meeting at Elkridge Volunteer Fire Hall in the 6200 block of Old Washington Road.

The culvert work would disrupt the traffic patterns, preventing a good traffic count, and the work might not be done until late spring, he said. The county doesn't study summer traffic because schools are closed and traffic is light.

Despite that, both sides in the dispute seemed satisfied.

Don McNamara, who lives on Hanover Road and wants it closed, said he is pleased because he feels construction work on new homes in the community will be done by next year, removing the workers' vehicles from the area and yielding a more accurate count.

Meanwhile, Gail Sigel, who wants the road kept open, said she is happy, too, because an industrial park under construction on the Anne Arundel side of the railroad tracks will be nearly done by then, and "they'll get better counts."

She said she is convinced that despite that, the county will find traffic to be lighter than expected, meaning the road would not have to close.

Art Lisowsky, who lives two miles from the disputed crossing on the Anne Arundel side, said traffic is much lighter than a decade ago because of the opening of Route 100 nearby. He said the tailgaters who follow him to a supermarket on U.S. 1 live in Elkridge and are not people using the road as a short cut.

Malone said the study will count volume, and also will include having people recording license-plate numbers at various locations to see which cars are passing through and which stop in the historic neighborhood. Then, after consulting the community again, he hopes to close the road at the railroad crossing for a month to see what effect that has, leading to some final decision.

The County Council postponed action in May on a decision to close Hanover Road because of the difference of opinions within the community.

County Councilman Christopher J. Merdon, an Ellicott City Republican who represents most of Elkridge, had said in May that he wants the road closed, but he asked for a study after a group of residents, led by Sigel, objected.

Earlier, county officials had worked with the Greater Elkridge Community Association, which approved of the closing rather than road improvements that the county suggested, because the association members feared attracting more traffic.

But Sigel and other residents who heard about the plan campaigned to block the closing.

James M. Irvin, the county public works director, said he feels that the railroad crossing is unsafe, because vehicles approach at an angle and fast commuter trains pass there. Some Elkridge residents agree, and they want to be shielded from fast-growing development around BWI, and from an industrial park being built east of the tracks.

Sigel and others complain that closing the road would make it harder to reach the airport, Route 100, and Arundel Mills mall, forcing traffic back through their residential community and onto already congested U.S. 1.