Editor:
The Aegis Wednesday reports the I-95 -Route 24 interchange as "one of the most congested areas in Harford County" and the new intersection is nearly completed and traffic will be better when completed. I never studied highway engineering in college, but as a child I saw that the best way to eliminate a congested intersection was by installing a bridge and cloverleaf and removing the traffic lights.
Yet, even after Route 24 was improved years ago there were traffic lights where it crosses over I-95 to impede traffic between Bel Air and Edgewood. Now with the fine new bridge over Route 924 and the many other road improvements in the area, we will still have traffic lights impeding traffic between Bel Air and Edgewood. Why? If taken to task, I'm sure they would say it is because they never constructed a complete cloverleaf. Why not?
With BRAC families added to Harford's natural population growth, this job should have been planned and done while the contractors and their equipment are still on the job and before all the finishing touches are completed. How many more zeros will be added to "today's completion cost" in a few years when traffic again becomes intolerable? And what about the paperwork costs that don't carry cars – environmental impact and other studies, public meetings, surveys, estimates, bidding, permits etc. before the first bucket of dirt is turned and all today's finish work has to be torn out and eventually replaced.
I would describe it with an old term I remember from my Army days: PPPP which stands for p- poor prior planning.
Elliot Deutsch
Bel Air