Roadwork stalled if not under way

Major projects here already started

Friday, Sept. 25, 2009

Lucky for St. Mary's County that some major road projects were already under way. But some of the county commissioners expressed concerns Tuesday about two state roads in the county, one at the northern end and the other at the tip of the peninsula.

Commissioner Larry Jarboe (R) called Route 236, Thompson Corner Road, the worst state road in the county. Commissioner Daniel H. Raley (D) continued his annual pleas to widen Route 5 near the entrance to Point Lookout State Park.

"I'm not here able to bring much good news or funding," Beverley Swaim-Staley, secretary of the Maryland Department of Transportation, said Tuesday before the commissioners. Last year, $1 billion was cut from the state's short-term transportation plan and another $1 billion was cut in December, she said. If it weren't for federal stimulus dollars, there would have been few new road projects at all, she said.

With cuts to operating budgets, motorists might notice less mowing along the roads and fewer pavement repairs, said Neil Pederson, administrator of the State Highway Administration.

Jarboe invited Swaim-Staley to take a buggy ride along Thompson Corner Road to see first-hand how poor the road's condition is. "We need a road. It is really the worst state road in St. Mary's County," he said. The temporary patches aren't doing the job, he said. Buggy axles are being broken now because of holes. He said he didn't want to see horses' legs being broken next.

The road was last resurfaced in 2002. Maintenance for the road is scheduled for fiscal 2011, but funding is still questionable for the project.

Raley again asked that Route 5 be widened to Point Lookout State Park, the county's most popular visitor destination. The road is narrow there in Scotland with deep ditches and no shoulders.

"You remind me every year," Pederson said. Engineering on the project has stopped and it's estimated to cost $13 million to complete.

Otherwise, planning continues for an expansion or replacement of the Gov. Thomas Johnson bridge over the Patuxent River. The two options on the table now are to add a parallel span or to build an entirely new one. Any new bridge would not be as tall as the existing span at 142 feet. It would probably be 75 feet tall, Pederson said.

"I guess the bridge has now been in place long enough that those who were involved in the original decision on the height are no longer around to advise us as to why it is the height that it is," Peterson told the Calvert County commissioners earlier in the day. "I had always been told that it was so that aircraft carriers in a hurricane would be able to come in and seek safe refuge north of the existing bridge, but the Navy has told us that is no longer a need, if it was at one time."

The final height of a new bridge would be determined by Coast Guard data, Pederson said in Calvert.

After planning is complete, then comes the hard part — funding the rest of it. "We're talking about a very costly project here," Pederson said in St. Mary's, as much as $700 million, "a huge financial challenge," he said.

The work to widen Chancellor's Run Road in Great Mills to four lanes with a divided median continues and is now 60 percent complete, he said. The total cost of the project is $55.3 million.

Planning to widen Route 5 in Leonardtown to add a center lane between Hollywood Road and Newtowne Neck Road continues. Most planning projects across the state were put on hold because funding went away, Pederson said, but this one was far enough along to continue.

If Route 5 is widened on the southbound side, it could displace between six and 14 businesses, Pederson said. Commissioner Thomas A. Mattingly Sr. (D) said the road should be widened on the northbound side to avoid that.

The $4 million streetscaping in Leonardtown continues and should be completed in the spring. Streetscaping for Great Mills Road begins this month for a cost of $7.2 million.

Redecking of the Route 234 bridge over St. Clement Creek continues and should be done in the spring at a cost of $1.4 million.

Federal stimulus dollars were spent to resurface Route 5 in Loveville for $1.4 million and Mechanicsville for $994,000 and Route 5 from Rosecroft Road in St. Mary's City to Ridge will be resurfaced, starting this fall, for $2.1 million.

jbabcock@somdnews.com

Staff writer Jeff Newman contributed to this report.