U.S. 301 fixes crawling to finish

State schedules options workshop

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

The Maryland State Highway Administration will hold an informal workshop from 5:30 to 8 p.m. Thursday at Mattawoman Middle School in Waldorf to present what the state refers to as the final alternatives on ways to improve the traffic bottleneck along U.S. 301 in town.

The alternatives, for the most part, have not changed since they were last discussed several years ago. State officials are proposing three versions of an upgrade to the road and the much-debated and heavily contested but still in the running alternatives of building either an eastern or western bypass around Waldorf.

The good news is that the no-build option has been dropped.

State and federal highway officials began in 1993 the laborious process of devising, studying and taking to public hearing alternatives to ease traffic congestion along the highway from just north of where Charles County meets the Prince George’s County line to Turkey Hill Road in White Plains. Pretty much the same upgrade alternatives and the eastern and western Waldorf bypass options were studied, discussed and contested during that time, with no results.

This time, state highway officials indicate in a revised final draft of the U.S. 301 Waldorf Area Transportation Improvements Project that the time for talking is done and that something is going to definitely take place to eliminate the traffic nightmare on Waldorf’s ‘‘main” street.

Alternatives two, three and four propose, with some variations, to eliminate seven signalized intersections between McKendree and Cedarville Road in Brandywine and Smallwood Drive in Waldorf.

One of the alternatives also proposes a fly-over ramp from U.S. 301 southbound to Route 5 southbound, one additional through-travel lane in each direction and driveway access consolidation along U.S. 301, according to the report.

An eastern and a western Waldorf bypass are still on the table.

Both bypasses would begin off U.S. 301 just north of the Charles and Prince George’s County line near TB where Route 5 and U.S. 301 split, and empty out in White Plains near Turkey Hill Road or Washington Avenue, said Kellie Boulware, SHA spokeswoman.

Local environmentalists decried the building of both of the bypass alternatives during past public hearings. The western bypass would slice through the Mattawoman Creek watershed and the eastern would cut through the Zekiah Swamp watershed.

‘‘We don’t want either bypass,” said local environmentalist Bonnie Bick, who serves as a member of the Sierra Club Maryland Chapter’s executive committee. ‘‘The western bypass would have unacceptable impacts on the Mattawoman Creek basin. We must protect the Mattawoman’s health or we’ll lose our living resources and forests.”

Several years ago, the Prince George’s County Council voiced opposition to the construction of both the eastern and western bypass options in Waldorf, but pledged to support an upgrade of U.S. 301.

Charles County commissioners’ President F. Wayne Cooper (D) said that it is long past the time to debate the issues surrounding the U.S. 301 improvement project and begin the long process of making it a reality.

‘‘During the election process the commissioners did everything that we could to make the governor aware of the traffic problem in Charles County and that we need a bypass,” he said. ‘‘We try to meet more than once a year with the state to stay involved in the process. We’re doing all that we can to finish this process in the near future.”

Cooper said that the only sticking point for the state to begin the project is funding.

‘‘Even if everyone likes the idea and everyone is for it, the state has to have the funding to begin the project,” he said.

Thursday’s workshop — a similar session was held Tuesday evening in Brandywine —will be informal and will include several stations set up around the gymnasium of Mattawoman Middle School where participants can drop in and view the proposed alternatives at their leisure. State and local transportation experts will be on hand to field questions and address concerns about the final proposed alternatives, Boulware said.

Residents will also be able to submit comments about the alternatives to the state during the workshop, Boulware said.

State highway engineers have determined that the two current failing signalized intersections at Theodore Green Boulevard in White Plains and Route 228 (Berry Road) in Waldorf will grow to 15 failing intersections — all of the major intersections through Waldorf – by 2030, according to SHA’s report on the project.

In addition, the number of vehicles that travel along the highway through Waldorf is expected to more than double by 2030, according to the report.

State highway officials are keeping a close eye on traffic congestion along the highway in La Plata, even though it is not in the study area. Further study should be done to provide for a potential limited access roadway through town, according to the report.

La Plata Mayor Gene Ambrogio said the state might be going about the project somewhat backwards.

‘‘I think that the state should concentrate on La Plata first,” he said.

‘‘If they do the bypass and they don’t have La Plata’s portion of [U.S.] 301 ready, it really is going to create a bottleneck in town.”

Public hearings on the proposed alternatives will be scheduled next spring and an alternative is expected to be selected by next fall or summer, according to SHA’s Web site.

Residents should plan to drop by the workshop, Boulware said.

‘‘They can walk through at their own pace,” she said. ‘‘This is an opportunity for people to comment on what they feel are reasonable alternatives and to speak to the project managers face to face.”