Maryland Highway projects to improve Route 1 and build lots of shoulders, a bike lane and a path

Maryland Governor Larry Hogan recently killed Baltimore's red line transit project, and in this case Baltimore transit users loss is (to a very small extent) Washington-area cyclists gain. The governor announced $2B worth of highway projects, some of which have a varying amount of bicycle benefits. Most notably will be improvements to Route 1 in College Park.

The US 1 College Park Pedestrian, Bicycle and Safety Improvements project will spend $30 million to reconstruct US 1 to a four-lane divided highway with a raised median and enhanced bicycle and pedestrian accommodations from College Avenue to MD 193.

And just outside the immediate area, near Fort Meade, Annapolis Road (MD -175) between Reece Road and Disney Road will be expanded from two to six lanes, with a median, on-road bicycle lanes in each direction, a 5-foot sidewalk on the north side and a 10-foot, shared-use path on the south side of MD 175.

Additionally, the I-270 interchange project in Montgomery County (which does not represent new funding) will include bicycle and pedestrian improvements along Watkins Mill Road within the project area and to the Metropolitan Grove MARC station.

Farther from DC the projects will build many "bicycle-compatible shoulders.

• In Queen Anne’s, Talbot, and Caroline Counties, MD-404 will be widened from a two-lane road to a four-lane divided highway with a median and shoulders to accommodate bicycles and pedestrians;.
• In Worcester County US 113 will be widened from two to four lanes with a median and shoulders wide enough to accommodate bicycles from Five Mile Branch Road to north of Public Landing Road, a distance of 4.6 miles; and
• In Baltimore County, northbound MD 140 will be widened from Painters Mill Road to Garrison View Road to accommodate an additional third travel lane and a bicycle-compatible shoulder.

Comments

[Uptowner]

Any idea what "enhanced bicycle and pedestrian accommodations" means? Given that this is Hogan's MD we're talking about, I presume this means 5 foot bike lanes next to 45mph traffic.

[SJE]

Or wider roads in rural areas that *theoretically* could give room for cyclists

[T]

Uptowner, isn't that what they were under O'Malley too? IE, the painted sharrows on high-speed arterial roads?

I believe the CP project is a really good one (I know Jeff and Laurie from Proteus spearheaded a lot of that effort). It's 1.5% of the total spending on all roads for just that project, so I would that's a big win for them and local commuters/students.

[Mike]

Uptowner: that's mostly correct, but the cars are going 65 rather than 45.