Chesapeake Bay Foundation

August 11, 1999

Mr. Neil Pedersen
Office of Planning and Preliminary Engineering
State Highway Administration
707 North Calvert Street, Mailstop C-301
Baltimore, MD 21202

RE: Design alternatives for MD 32 from MD 108 to I-70

Dear Mr. Pederson:

On behalf of the Baltimore Regional Partnership, I want to thank you for including me at the June 24 MD 32 stakeholders meeting. I am excited at the prospects of finding workable alternatives to address the safety concerns on MD 32 without spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a sprawl-inducing capacity project. I would like to reiterate the Baltimore Regional Partnership's proposals from our earlier correspondence with SHA, particularly the Transportation Analysis by Gerald Neily submitted as Exhibit 1 as our comments on the MD 32 DEIS (see attached).

We ask that continued discussions with the stakeholders in the MD 32 corridor include genuine consideration of safety improvements that do not vastly expand the capacity of the highway. Primary among potential solutions is a permanent median and related shoulder improvements to physically separate oncoming traffic. In our June 24 stakeholders meeting with SHA, a permanent physical median did not appear to be considered by SHA, rather, median designs under consideration appeared to only include striping and rumble strips, and also seemed to be treated only as short term solutions. 

The analysis and proposals forwarded to you in our previous correspondence are suggestions of viable alternative approaches to addressing problems on this segment of MD 32 - alternatives that have been successfully used in other locations facing similar conditions. At this juncture, we strongly recommend that SHA contract one of the well-known transportation consulting firms that have successfully designed highway improvements addressing similar problems to those of MD 32. We recommend the following individuals and firms for innovative road designs:

Rick Chelman
Tel. 603-539-4118
White Mountain Survey
1270 Rt. 16, Box 440, Ossipee, NH 03964

Walter Kulash
Tel. 407-843-6552, Fax 407-839-1789
Glatting Jackson Kercher Anglin Lopez Rinehart, Inc. Community Planning
33 E. Pine St. Orlando, Fl. 32801

Resource Systems Group
Tel. 802-295-4999, Fax: 802-295-1006
331 Olcott Drive, White River Junction, VT 05001

I look forward to the next meeting of the stakeholders group for the MD 32 study.

Sincerely,

Cheryl Cort
Manager, Urban & Regional Projects

The Baltimore Regional Partnership is an alliance of five community and environmental groups working on a common agenda of enhancing the Baltimore area's quality of life through urban revitalization and environmental protection. The Partnership is: Citizens' Planning and Housing Association, Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Environmental Defense Fund, Baltimore Urban League, & 1000 Friends of Maryland.