Highway Construction Reshaping I-95-695 Interchange BALTIMORE, MD (wypr) - That hammer pounding away is the engineer's equivalent of a surgeon's scalpel, cutting into an embankment a few hundred feet south of the Beltway interchange for a facelift to give the 45-year-old John F. Kennedy Memorial Highway a new lease on life. Nearby, steel skeletons for new ramps arch over the old roadway, crews scrape hillsides to add lanes to I-95 and still others are erecting concrete barriers to block the noise that causes headaches for those living near a major highway.

David LaBella, Maryland Transportation Administration project manager, explained what's gong on:

This project is called the I-95 Express Toll Lanes Project. . . . It includes the construction of four express toll lanes, two in the northbound direction and two in the southbound direction for a 10-mile length from I-895 and I-95 at the Baltimore City-County line to north of Maryland 43, which is White Marsh Boulevard. . . . It also includes the reconstruction . . . of three major interchanges at I-895 and 95, the Baltimore Beltway and Maryland 43. So, the final product will leave you with six lanes in each direction, four general purpose lanes, which are the existing lanes, and two express toll lanes.

Eleven tall construction cranes loom over the worksite, where more than 100 contractors and subcontractors toil away, excavating, erecting sound barriers and on and off-ramps, as well as landscaping to protect streams and creeks. But LaBella said the finished work will also please I-95's neighbors:

We are constructing 16 noise walls throughout the project on both the northbound and southbound sides, and we are providing full-width shoulders . . . on both sides of the highway, so it's a pretty comprehensive project and a major facelift for a 45-year old facility. And it's a facility that, John F. Kennedy attended the ribbon-cutting. So this is a major facelift and an expansion and a way to manage the traffic on I-95 because this is the most congested portion of I-95 in the Baltimore area.

Besides eliminating the left-lane Beltway exits that present drivers with safety challenges during high-traffic hours, LaBella said, local roads are also impacted:

Those are the major highlights, but . . . there will also be and has been the replacement of several overpass structures throughout the project, most notably the completed projects, including Joppa Road, Collington Avenue, Kenwood, which is almost complete and a couple of other structures within the city limits on Moravia Road and Moravia Park Drive.

It's a big job, added LaBella, costing more than 1-point- 2 billion dollars. And it's all state money, from bond issues and highway tolls. The JFK's improvements are paid for, but the new tolls will cover other roadwork. Drivers will have two options, LaBella said: Line up at the booth, or speed through on the EZ Pass lanes:

LaBella described it this way:

An Express Toll Lane allows the driver to traverse north or south down the highway on I-95 at full speed. Tolls are collected at full speed, there are no toll booths. There are overhead . . . structures . . . that can read EZ Pass transponders.

And as LaBella said, traffic already far exceeds the levels planned when I-95 was built, and will climb higher in the future:

In the northbound and southbound direction,. . . there is an average daily traffic of 183,500 vehicles. . . around the I-695 interchange. And in 2025 it will be about 194,500.

In other words, MTA officers saw bottlenecks strangling traffic on the busiest 10-mile stretch highway in the state. One-point-two billion dollars is a lot of money and six years is a lot of time, but if constructing a mixing bowl of ramps and overpasses can speed traffic and ease drivers' patience, it's a price many Marylanders -- as well as motorists from other states - may feel is well worth the cost.

I'm Garland Thompson, reporting from I-95 for 88.1, WYPR.


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