Unfinished roadwork angers residents

Green said a 14-year-old girl was struck on Auth Road last week while trying to board a school bus. In 2005, a 12-year-old boy was struck, also while trying to board a school bus. She also said that she saw a woman with a baby almost get hit while trying to walk to the Branch Avenue Metro Station.

Green, a former president of the association who has followed the road construction since its inception in the early 1990s, said the Auth Road project came in two phases. The first phase — one mile from the intersection of Auth Road and Branch Avenue to the Metro station — was finished in 2001 with the building of the station. But the second phase — about a mile and a half from the intersection of Auth Road and Henderson Way to Allentown Road — has not yet begun.

Jim Wilson, chief of the DPWT’s highways and bridges division, said the project is scheduled to be complete by 2014. The project will cost $5.6 million in Capital Improvement Plan funds. But that number may go up depending on future costs, he said.

Wilson said he recently drove Auth Road from Henderson Way to Allentown Road and saw that the area needs curbs, gutters and sidewalks. There also are open ditches along the road, he said.

‘‘I understand the need, but we can’t do it right now,” Wilson said. ‘‘The multi millions of dollars in project funds just do not exist. We need to finish other projects first.”

Susan Hubbard, a DPWT spokeswoman, said the fiscal 2008 budget for the department is only $20 million — close to $12 million of that is dedicated to repaving county roads. She also noted that, while Montgomery County and Prince George’s counties both have nearly 1,800 miles of roadway, the Prince George’s DPWT has a staff of 449 people. The Montgomery County staff, by comparison, is nearly 1,600.

Robert Hay, a resident who lives on Auth Road, said he was concerned about speeding on a road that already has so many problems with ditches and a lack of sidewalks.

‘‘The problem on that road is speed,” he said at the meeting. ‘‘Cars come down at 50, 60 miles per hour.”

Hay said he has seen many cars swerve into the yards of houses on the road.

Ray Mercado, chief of the DPWT technical support section, said the department has done everything in its power to show the proper speed on the road.

‘‘All the signs that need to be there are in place,” Mercado said. ‘‘If people are speeding, it’s a police matter. You have to put some teeth behind the signs.”

But residents didn’t seem pleased with the timeline or the possible solutions. And some think the problem might worsen when the 282-unit condominium complex Tribeca of Camp Springs opens today on nearby Old Soper Road.

‘‘[The Auth Road project] just keeps getting pushed back,” Green said.