Large road projects come to county

Thursday, Feb. 2, 2006

Half a dozen major road projects worth more than $300 million are getting underway in Prince George’s County over the next 18 months, creating some temporary inconvenience as the state works to expand or improve road arteries.

A $53 million project to expand Branch Avenue from five lanes to six is scheduled to begin in the next few weeks. The expansion would extend from U.S. 301 to just north of the Capital Beltway.

The improvements are supposed to reduce rush-hour congestion and accidents on the 10-mile section of highway, traveled by 166,000 vehicles each day.

In addition, the State Highway Administration is preparing for an increase in traffic there as development continues in the southern part of the county and northern end of Charles County. State highway officials are projecting more than 232,000 vehicles will travel the road by 2030. Authorities could not say how long the project will take. Road projects of this scope typically take a year or more to complete.

Forestville is due to have an eight-foot high retaining wall constructed on Pennsylvania Avenue between Walters Lane and the Berkshire community. The project also includes ornamental fencing from the end of the retaining wall to Parkland Drive to help improve pedestrian safety. The four-lane road is traveled by more than 43,000 vehicles daily. There will be single-lane closings on Pennsylvania Avenue between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. until the $2.6 million project is completed.

Construction on the Intercounty Connector, a six-lane, 18-mile highway linking Interstate 270 in Montgomery County to I-95 in Laurel, is scheduled to begin by the end of the year.

Erin Henson, a public affairs officer for the Maryland Dept. of Transportation said there are no plans to close any roads. ‘‘It’s far too early in the process to talk about those things,” she said.

Improvements are also being designed for the Arena Drive interchange on the Beltway. The exit adjacent to the Boulevard at the Capital Centre shopping center is open only during Redskins games. Construction is expected to begin in spring 2007.

Plans to build a new interchange at Pennsylvania Avenue and Suitland Parkway are in the works. The interchange would support economic development efforts near Rosewood, a 477-acre mixed-used development project, and Andrews Air Force Base in Camp Springs. Construction for the $92 million project will begin in 2008.

An estimated 74,000 vehicles pass through the Suitland Parkway-Pennsylvania route daily. The road handles 50 percent more traffic than its planners intended, transportation officials said.

The Woodrow Wilson Bridge, financed with federal and state funding from Maryland and Virginia, will open the first new bridge this summer. A second bridge will open in the summer of 2008. Construction on the 7.5 mile road began in October 2000.

The original structure, built in the 1960s was supposed to carry 75,000 cars each day for the next 20 years, but that capacity was reached in eight years. Nearly 200,000 vehicles now cross the six-lane bridge onto the eight-lane Beltway daily, creating one of the most challenging bottlenecks in the region.

If a proposal being considered in the General Assembly this month is approved, Prince George’s County would receive $241 million over the next six years for use on local road projects as part of a $13 billion statewide transportation program.

Maryland Transportation Secretary Robert L. Flanagan said the road funding is an effort to put the county on equal footing with other jurisdictions.

‘‘There is a history of economic divide in the Washington Metropolitan area, so, it’s important to Gov. Ehrlich that Prince George’s County get its fair share,” Flanagan said.

He cited the delay in extending the subway line in the county as one example. The county waited for years to see Metrorail extended beyond the Beltway to Largo Town Center and Morgan Boulevard Metro stations. Montgomery and Fairfax counties have long had a dozen outer Beltway stations between them.

E-mail Tiesha Higgins at thiggins@gazette.net.