State begins long-requested Route 32 improvements
Announcement follows second fatal collision in three months

By Mike Santa Rita
msantarita@patuxent.com
Posted 9/16/09

Carroll County drivers who take Route 32 into Howard County should expect to see improvements to the road on their daily commutes.

State and Howard County officials announced today they have begun work on safety improvements to Route 32 between I-70 and the Carroll County line, the site of a fatal collision that happened Thursday.

The announcement came after a phone call Howard County Executive Kenneth Ulman made to Gov. Martin O’Malley within hours of the collision, asking that safety improvements be made as soon as possible.

The announcement also followed years of complaints from local residents, who noted last week that the most recent fatality was not the first on that stretch of Route 32.

The projects are expected to last through the fall and will cost the State Highway Administration between $400,000 and $500,000, said Valerie Burnette Edgar an SHA spokeswoman.

Maryland's Department of Transportation Sec. Beverly Swaim-Staley is scheduled to speak with residents about the road at a Make Route 32 Safe meeting on Thursday.

The meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m., Thursday at the Howard County Board of Education, 10910 Clarksville Pike, Ellicott City.

Ulman praised the measures.

“While we can’t undo the terrible tragedies that have occurred in the past, the planned improvements will make the road safer and lessen the future risk to drivers on this busy highway,” Ulman said in a statement.

Improvements to be made immediately include: putting up signs warning of left-turning traffic at several intersections on Route 32; closing some passing zones near key intersections; and, deploying “speed trailers” in the area, to remind drivers how fast they are driving.

The immediate safety provisions are expected to take about two weeks, Burnette Edgar said. Some of the signs were already installed on Tuesday, she said.

Projects to be undertaken over the fall include re-striping Route 32 at key intersections to provide separate turn lanes and increasing the width of the center line and edge line markings to increase their visibility.

The fatal collision last Thursday occurred shortly before 5:30 p.m., when Brian Edgar Emery, 49, was stopped in his car on northbound Route 32, waiting to make a left turn onto Amberwoods Way. While waiting, Emery was struck from behind by a Chevrolet Express Van, according to police, and his car was knocked across the double line, where it was hit by a southbound Dodge pickup truck.

Emery, of the 1200 block of Forest Creek Court, in Sykesville, was pronounced dead on the scene.

The driver of the van, identified by police as Thomas Donald Cory, 55, of Marriottsville, was not injured. The driver of the pickup truck, identified by police as Robert Lewis Wyscarver, 40, of Ellicott City, was taken to Howard County General Hospital with minor injuries.

Police said they are still investigating the accident and charges are pending.

Last week’s fatal collision only intensified long-standing concern about the dangers of driving that stretch of Route 32.

In July, hundreds of area residents met with state highway officials and local representatives to air their complaints. That meeting followed a June 23 crash at the intersection of Route 32 and River Road that killed 13-year-old Vincent Dasung Woodward and his mother, Kyong Hae “Jennifer” Kim.

Howard Blackman, a community organizer, who started the Web site, makeroute32safe.com, to lobby for improvements to the road, said in a previous interview that the restriping of Route 32 to allow for a separate turn lane at Amberwoods way would have likely prevented the collision. Blackman was not available for comment Wednesday.

Del. Warren Miller, a Woodbine Republican whose district includes the area of Thursday’s fatal collision, said the improvements were better late than never, but still fell short.

“It’s nice that they’re getting around to trying to make Route 32 safe, but it’s unfortunate that we had to have yet another fatality to get here,” he said. “We’ve been beating the drums on how unsafe Route 32 is for a long time.”

Miller said he would like the state to limit the access points onto the road and make entering and exiting the road safer.

“It’s a nice near-term step,” he said of the planned improvements, “but it’s not going to be enough, in my opinion, to make the road safe.”

 

 

Authorized by Friends of Susan Krebs, Sheryl B. DelGiorno, Treasurer