Bay Bridge Crash Raises Safety Concerns BAY BRIDGE (wypr) - Officials at the agency that lobbies for motorists blamed the crash that took one life and sent two people to the University of Maryland's Shock-Trauma unit on structural deficiencies on the bridge, the two-way traffic operation and the lack of capacity on the bridge.

The reality is we clearly do not have enough capacity to handle the volume of vehicles to cross the bridge as demonstrated by the over 10 mile backups for hours on end yesterday and even under the best of circumstances back ups are the norm around the weekend.

Christine Delise is a spokeswoman for Maryland Triple A.

I mean, you look at the New York metro area, granted there's more vehicles, but you have two bridges and two tunnels for crossing the Hudson River and we are urging the governor to consider studying additional solutions to address traffic capacity for crossing the bay.

A panel convened by former Governor Robert Ehrlich, on which AAA Mid-Atlantic representatives served, found a need for further study, but the organization complained in a statement that the current administration had not pursued that recommendation.

Press aides for Governor Martin O'Malley did not return a call for comment.

The accident occurred about 4 a.m. Sunday, when the west-bound span was shut down and all traffic routed to the two-lane eastbound span. Delise said a Triple A study found that 70-percent of fatal accidents occur on the bridge during two-way operations on one span.

While we don't quite know yet the exact cause of the crash and we don't yet know what impact the two-way traffic that was imposed at the time of the crash had on this incident the reality is that two-way traffic on the bay bridge poses unique safety challenges to motorists."

But Corporal Jonathan Green, spokesman for the Transportation Authority Police, which patrols the bridge, said officials had no choice.

When you need to maintain either one of the structures you need to be able to close it down and that means you have to do two-way operation on one of the bridges in order to work on the other.

In this case, the west-bound span had been closed overnight Saturday, while contractors moved equipment into place to re-start the re-decking project that had been suspended during the summer driving season.

Some of the preparation work that needs to go into effect prior to them starting back up again was going on. That was one factor and the other was some repairs to I believe they call them the railings. So there was at least two different issues being addressed from Saturday night into Sunday morning.

Geoffrey Kolberg, the chief engineer for the Maryland Transportation Authority, said the driver of the tractor-trailer apparently braked to avoid an oncoming car. The truck bounced off one Jersey barrier, shot across the bridge at an angle and rode up and over the Jersey barrier on that side.

Kolberg said the truck ripped away an eight-foot section of the barrier before it plunged into the bay. It was the first time, since the bridge opened in 1952, that a vehicle has gone over one of the barriers.

Rescue crews recovered the body of the driver, Robert Short, 57, of Willards, about an hour-and-a-half later.

Two people in one car involved in the accident were taken to the University of Maryland Shock-Trauma Center in Baltimore, while those in a second car escaped uninjured.

The cab leaked some diesel fuel and crews from the Maryland Department of the Environment were on the scene to assist with the clean up. But officials said it did not appear to pose a serious threat to the bay.

Crews pulled the cab of the truck out of the water in the morning. They got the trailer onto a barge in late afternoon. Some of the chicken had floated into the bay.

Corporal Green said repairs to the bridge were finished late in the afternoon and both lanes of the east-bound span were re-opened Monday shortly after 4 p.m. The back-ups continued for another hour or so.

I'm Joel McCord, reporting at the Bay Bridge for 88.1, WYPR.
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