Shortcuts are great, as long as they don't cut through your back yard or your neighborhood.

And it's perfectly reasonable for people living in places like Cedarday and Tollgate Village in the Greater Bel Air area, to be upset about proposals to allow for the building of shortcuts through their neighborhoods. You move in expecting one thing, because that's what's on the books, and all of a sudden, your quiet neighborhood isn't so quiet.

In the case of Tollgate Village, the dispute is over a public safety access that would link the community to Bel Air Acres. Such a link, no doubt, would turn into a shortcut, possibly an irritating one. Fortunately, there's a relatively easy solution to this issue: an emergency only access, like the one where Route 152 and Old Fallston Road used to intersect, which would allow emergency vehicles access, even as it would be closed to traffic most of the time. Enforcement would be key, but the neighborhood can certainly be depended upon to keep the authorities aware of violations.

In the case of Cedarday, the issue is a good deal more complex. Expanding Cedarday Drive, which is a dirt road in places, will dramatically change the area served by the road. It links Wheel Road in the Emmorton area with Route 136 in Creswell and its improvement includes a plan for a bridge over a creek that's now spanned by a pipe culvert.

Not only are the people opposed to this major expansion correct in their complaint that the project would dramatically affect their neighborhood, but also it is worth pointing out that that such a change in neighborhood could become the reason for expanding Harford County's development area into Creswell, which has long been largely rural.

This isn't the first time the Cedarday Drive expansion has been pushed as being the thin edge of the wedge in trying to open a new area to development, and it probably won't be the last. But it shouldn't be allowed to happen. The Greater Bel Air area already is congested, and adding another major residential development component will only make things worse.

Cedarday Drive should be allowed to remain largely as it is, a back country road.