Patuxent bridge gets four-month buffing; Shop owners hope people keep coming

The Baltimore Sun

After building her reputation by renting a booth at a hair salon in Bowie, Jacqueline Ta last year opened her own shop on well-traveled Route 214 in Davidsonville.

Now she fears her Jolie by Jackie Salon may go the way of beehive hairdos.

She is among the dozens of business and home owners who say the $3 million facelift of the Patuxent River Bridge is going to cut them off from their customers, their commute and more.

The state plans to close the bridge, which links Anne Arundel and Prince George's County, for four months starting on Aug. 6, but already, crews have shut one of the two lanes.

"Most of my customers came from Bowie with me," Ta said. "That will cause a lot of problems because a lot of them don't want to get on Route 50. It's going to kill my business."

Since June, a small group of owners with businesses located near the bridge have met with State Highway Administration officials in hopes of persuading them to delay the project or reconsider closing the bridge. But SHA spokesman David Buck said it could not avoid closing the 72-year-old bridge for its first major overhaul.

Highway crews will clean and paint parts of the bridge, resurface and repave the road, install new guard rails and add landscaping. A major component is the repairs to the cross members -- horizontal structures that support the roadbed, also referred to as the deck.

"What's unique is you can't just repair half of the cross members without creating significant safety issues," Buck said. "You have to take the whole deck off before you can look at the cross members."

He said the work will not be put off. "If you don't get the new paint on your car or the new roof on your house you could find yourself with a much bigger problem," Buck said.

The project would take at least two years if the bridge remained open, and if repairs were not made, eventually the agency could be forced to impose weight limits that would restrict traffic, Buck added.

Highway crews will work 12 hours each day starting at 6 a.m., seven days a week.

State highway workers clad in hard hats and reflective vests directed traffic this week on the one open lane of the two-lane, 200-foot bridge.

The SHA has added a temporary traffic light at a likely detour, the intersection of Route 424 and Governors Bridge Road; the agency hopes that will help control the increased traffic volume.

The bridge carries about 11,000 vehicles a day, the SHA said.

Highway officials also plan to post signs with the logos of the affected businesses along Routes 301 and 214 in Prince George's County and Routes 424 and 214 in Anne Arundel to inform drivers that these businesses are still open.

Some businesses said signs can't save them.

"It's going to be like a dead-end street," said Misty Golding, 33, manager of Smokey's Deli, located on the Prince George's side of the bridge. "It's a nice thing, but [potential customers] are not going to circle around 10 miles to get something to eat when they pass five other places."

Lewis Crossley, a 69-year-old Davidsonville resident, said the detour would add an extra 10 miles to his commute to the Census Bureau in Bowie.

"It's going to be real inconvenient," Crossley said.

"But it's an old bridge, and it needs to be repaired," added his wife, Pauline, 72.

sharahn.boykin@baltsun.com

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