Prince Frederick, MD – State transportation officials’ plans to widen Route 2/4 throughout the Prince Frederick Town Center appear ready to come off the back-burner. The latest project phase, however, is still five years away from completion.
On Tuesday, Sept. 30, representatives from the Maryland State Highway Administration (SHA) met with the Calvert County Commissioners regarding phase two of the widening.
“Phase two will begin where phase one left off and continue from Commerce Lane north to Fox Run Boulevard,” stated Department of Community Planning and Building principal planner Patricia Haddon in a memo to the county commissioners. “The project length is 0.87 miles. The project will widen Maryland Route 2/4 along its length to three lanes in each direction with various improvements and realign Main Street along Commerce Lane to a new, full movement intersection.”
The SHA’s project manager Kelvin Saldanha stated the original project to upgrade three miles of the state road began in 1997 with phase one finally completed in 2010.
Some of the added components that will be part of the project include sidewalks and a bike path. Saldanha said the result of the project phase would ‘improve capacity and mobility and provide a boulevard-like character.”
The Sept. 30 work session was mainly held to discuss the SHA’s request for a letter from the commissioners indicating “scope concurrence” with the project.
“The county has long anticipated that an underpass would connect the east and west sides of Prince Frederick in the area just south of Fox Run Boulevard to take traffic between Chesapeake Boulevard and Prince Frederick Boulevard,” Haddon stated. She indicated in her memo that SHA officials updated a study of future traffic on route 2/4 which determined the underpass would be underutilized. It would also be a pricey component to the planned road improvements.
During staff session prior to the regular meeting, Commissioner Gerald W. “Jerry” Clark [R] indicated he was in favor of eliminating the underpass from future consideration. “I would hate for Route 4 to turn into a series of overpasses,” said Clark.
The possibility of reconfiguring Commerce Lane to a full-movement, four-way intersection is also a project goal. There is a possibility Commerce Lane at Route 2/4 will become a “full-light intersection, a plan Department of Public Works Director Rai Sharma indicated he favors. “I think it must have a signal,” said Sharma.
Saldanha said a signal warrant study would have to be done first.
Commissioners’ President Pat Nutter [R] expressed concerns about the SHA’s plans as it related to the Armory Square Development project that is considered crucial to the revised Prince Frederick Town Center Master Plan. Nutter even declared he would not sign a letter from the board to the SHA indicating concurrence with the project scope.
Haddon pointed out that concept drawings presented at the Prince Frederick Town Center charrette in 2013 were taken into consideration by SHA planners and the state’s phase two plan was consistent with the town center concepts.
Saldanha said the design for the second phase is 30 percent complete and environmental studies related to the plan are underway. Design completion is anticipated by November 2016. Right now the state only has adequate funds for the design phase and right-of-way purchases. The two-year construction project is pending the availability of construction funding.
Contact Marty Madden at marty.madden@thebaynet.com