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Hogan announces start of $105 million I-81 widening
The Hagerstown Herald-Mail ^ | December 24, 2016 | CJ Lovelace

Posted on 12/29/2016 11:49:38 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan came to Hagerstown Thursday bearing gifts, announcing the start of a $105 million project to widen Interstate 81.

In partnership with West Virginia, the first phase of construction of the long-sought project, which recently got under way, will expand the heavily traveled interstate to six lanes from U.S. 11 in West Virginia to Md. 63 near Williamsport.

"These improvements to I-81 are critical infrastructure investments that will help citizens here in Washington County, across Western Maryland and all across our state go about their daily lives in a faster, more efficient and safer manner," Hogan said at a news conference before a large crowd in front of the The Maryland Theatre downtown.

The 5-mile stretch of work includes reconstruction of the Potomac River bridges and two bridges at the Md. 63 interchange, according to Hogan and a Maryland Department of Transportation news release.

Hogan was joined by Deputy Secretary of Transportation Jim Ports, who called Hogan "Maryland's Santa Claus," at the announcement attended by numerous state, local and business officials.

"It started off as a slogan, it became a promise and now it's a reality," Ports said. "Working in transportation for the Hogan administration is like Christmas morning every day ... because just like Santa Claus, we continue to deliver projects for Western Maryland."

Hogan said that another $5 million in state funds have been budgeted for design work of the second phase of widening, allowing the project to progress north to the Interstate 70 interchange.

He also announced that he has submitted an application for a federal FASTLANE grant to help pay for construction of the second and future phases, eventually widening the entire 12-mile portion of I-81 up to the Pennsylvania line to six lanes.

"This is a very important project, and it needs to happen," state Del. Neil C. Parrott said.

Parrott, R-Washington, and Hogan both stressed the importance of the Maryland General Assembly repealing the so-called "road kill" bill, which they claim could threaten nearly every transportation project in Maryland.

"If this bill is not defeated, we will not be able to compete" with proposed projects in metropolitan areas of the state, Parrott said, noting that the legislation ignores rural areas of Maryland and favors mass transit over road projects.

"We will not stop fighting until this catastrophic bill is repealed," said Hogan, who vetoed the bill this past spring before the legislature overrode it.

Expected to be completed by summer 2020, the first phase of I-81 work — paid for by $65 million from Maryland and $40 million from West Virginia — will include new stormwater-management systems, upgraded lighting, as well as new signs and guardrails to enhance safety along the corridor, according to state officials.

During the construction, work beneath the Potomac River bridges won't impact traffic as crews build new bridge piers to hold the two additional lanes of travel. Two travel lanes will be maintained throughout the project.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: Maryland
KEYWORDS: construction; democrats; fastlane; funding; gop; hagerstown; i81; infrastructure; interstate; interstate81; maryland; roadkillbill; ruralvsurban; transportation; widening
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Emphasis is mine.
1 posted on 12/29/2016 11:49:38 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks
He also announced that he has submitted an application for a federal FASTLANE grant to help pay for construction of the second and future phases...

...rendering at least one lane virtually unusable to most motorists.

Married couples and retirees rejoice...

2 posted on 12/29/2016 11:53:54 AM PST by DoughtyOne (Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night...)
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To: DoughtyOne

“FASTLANE” is the name of a federal grant program; it doesn’t mean that one lane of traffic will be reserved for specific users. As far as I know, all three lanes in each direction will be available to general traffic.

Though this is long overdue, the first phase really won’t do much more than provide an extra passing lane for a short distance. The second phase, linking the extra capacity up to the I-70 junction, is when the benefits of the extra lane will become apparent.

Really, the entire length of I-81 from North Carolina up through New York State needs to be widened. But at least this is a start.


3 posted on 12/29/2016 12:01:58 PM PST by bus man (Loose Lips Sink Ships)
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To: DoughtyOne

Is FASTLANE actually only for toll lanes or HOV lanes? I don’t know the exact requirements for that type of grant.


4 posted on 12/29/2016 12:10:39 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks (Hey, New Delhi! What the hell were you thinking???)
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To: bus man

Thanks. I appreciate the mention.

Out here in California during rush hour the diamond lane remains under-used while the other lanes are stopped dead in their tracks.

I’ve seen three lanes going around 25 mph, with a diamond lane with very few cars going by.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out increasing the flow by opening up that diamond lane would ease traffic significantly.

My wife and I never used the diamond lane even when together. The folks in there want to go 80 and it gets to the point it’s unsafe to drive in there even at 70.


5 posted on 12/29/2016 12:11:01 PM PST by DoughtyOne (Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night...)
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To: bus man

I-81’s southern terminus is in Tennessee, not North Carolina.


6 posted on 12/29/2016 12:11:52 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks (Hey, New Delhi! What the hell were you thinking???)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

I was told it didn’t, but I don’t live back there so I’m not independently sure myself.


7 posted on 12/29/2016 12:13:32 PM PST by DoughtyOne (Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night...)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

I-81 runs through the narrow panhandle of both MD and WV. What is it total through the two states, ten miles lol? Virginia has a very long stretch as does PA.


8 posted on 12/29/2016 12:16:03 PM PST by RegulatorCountry
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To: RegulatorCountry

12 miles in MD, about 25 miles in WV. Virginia’s stretch is about 325 miles.


9 posted on 12/29/2016 12:18:21 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks (Hey, New Delhi! What the hell were you thinking???)
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To: RegulatorCountry

Up the valley (which is south, counterintuitively) on I-81 in Virginia is one of my favorite interstate drives, provided the truck traffic isn’t out of hand. Gorgeous country, the Shenandoah. Long slog from NoVa turning off at Roanoke and continuing on into NC via 220, though. Whole lotta nothing along the way, pretty nothing but no place to be low on gas.


10 posted on 12/29/2016 12:22:03 PM PST by RegulatorCountry
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To: bus man

I like that it says traffic won’t be impeded. I really think all road expansion should be done by doubling the capacity. Build a new road — or bridge — with the same capacity as the old one and completely apart from it. No traffic impairment at all to the existing. Then divert all traffic to the new one while doing minor upgrades to the old one. Then reopen the old one so there is double the previous capacity, all without ever causing a bottleneck.


11 posted on 12/29/2016 12:22:37 PM PST by Kellis91789 (We hope for a bloodless revolution, but revolution is still the goal.)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Seems shorter than that, one minute you’re crossing into MD then the next you’re in WV then up comes VA, easy not to know which state you’re in going through there.


12 posted on 12/29/2016 12:25:55 PM PST by RegulatorCountry
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

You’re right, of course. And I should have known that, given that I’ve used that road down to Tennessee on several occasions.


13 posted on 12/29/2016 12:38:20 PM PST by bus man (Loose Lips Sink Ships)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Is there some limit to the number of interstate lanes going in a particular direction?

Just noting that the NJ Turnpike, instead of 6 lanes in a direction, has a double set of 3 lanes.


14 posted on 12/29/2016 12:39:42 PM PST by C210N
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To: bus man

I realize this is the way it has been done for decades, but I am hoping Trump changes things. Rather than doling out huge Federal spending to states to improve roads and bridges, I’d rather private companies were offered incentives and given permission to do the improvements and “donate” them to the states. I don’t mean construction contractors, I mean prominent businesses in the area like IBM, Amazon, etc. that normally have no connection to such projects but would like to get tax credits.

By having private companies hire contractors instead of the state doing it, we could avoid a lot of the labor requirements that unions have put in place over the decades for government projects. Laws that fleece the state by requiring workers, even if not union, be paid the highest prevailing union wage and dictate how many workers are required to do the job, supposedly in the name of safety but really just padding the payroll.

Let the state get bids and then the private business claim a tax credit equal to the lowest bid amount upon completion and donation of the project to the state. If businesses are more efficient than the state, then the business could get a larger tax credit than it actually cost them to complete the project. And for sure it would be done faster since the tax credit is only issued upon completion with no money outlays along the way, no cost overruns and no schedule slippage.


15 posted on 12/29/2016 12:39:49 PM PST by Kellis91789 (We hope for a bloodless revolution, but revolution is still the goal.)
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To: RegulatorCountry

Which brings up another question. How much road congestion should be solved by just increasing capacity and how much by separating freight traffic from light vehicle traffic ? Should we be building more dedicated truck routes and getting them off the regular highways ? Not possible in towns, where obviously trucks need to actually deliver their goods, but interstates could be done.


16 posted on 12/29/2016 12:46:08 PM PST by Kellis91789 (We hope for a bloodless revolution, but revolution is still the goal.)
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To: DoughtyOne

actually, in the state you mention, 3 lanes going 25, one lane let’s say completely empty, opening up that lane to all traffic would make only a minor change in total flow.

And that is even if we assume that a “2-person” rule has been useless in encouraging anybody to double-up.

IF you assumed that the 2-person rule was useful, and that eliminating it would make the 2-person cars into 1-person cars, then “opening up” the lane,even if it has only 10% of the traffic of the other lanes, doubles the traffic in that lane before you add anybody from the other lanes.

The question is why more people don’t double-up to avoid that 25-mph road situation.....

Here’s an interesting thing. If you presume people will follow the 1-car-length per 10 mph rule, and you compare a “fully packed” lane going 25 mph with a “fully-packed” lane going 60 mph, on the 25 mph lane you get 25 cars per minute past a point, while in the 60-mph lane you get 30 cars per minute.

In other words, even if people give the correct following distance, if you have a lane moving 25 mph, and you can FORCE that lane to go 60 mph, you’ll actually “thin out” the number of cars in a lane by 5 cars per minute by pushing them faster.

Meaning that the only reason they go slower is because the lane is overwhelmed. On the other hand, it shows that if you push more than 5 cars more into that lane, than the 25 on the other lanes, it will slow down to 25 mph.

There’s also a theory of road management built around this, that if you can slow traffic down just a little bit, you can get more cars through per minute, and avoid the overfull state that causes traffic to grind to a halt. This theory is being successfully used with some roads where they put speed limits every tenth of a mile for each lane, and if everybody obeys them, traffic moves quickly and smoothly.


17 posted on 12/29/2016 12:50:06 PM PST by CharlesWayneCT
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

It would be great if I-81 could be 3-laned through much of Virginia. It’s kind of a bottleneck, although it’s also annoying that a few locations in VA they slow traffic down to 60 mph, that really bogs things down.


18 posted on 12/29/2016 12:51:15 PM PST by CharlesWayneCT
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To: C210N

If they had an easier way to get people from one to another, that is a pretty good system. Too many lanes confuses people. And having two sets makes it easy to shut down an entire “highway” for repair.

I’ve been on that road in Toronto that has like 6 main lanes and 3 local lanes, it’s no fun when it is actually congested.


19 posted on 12/29/2016 12:54:02 PM PST by CharlesWayneCT
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To: RegulatorCountry
Up the valley (which is south, counterintuitively) on I-81 in Virginia is one of my favorite interstate drives, provided the truck traffic isn’t out of hand. Gorgeous country, the Shenandoah.

Yes, and I-81 has already turned much of the Valley into a truck nightmare. I hate the thought of more lanes and more traffic. The East Coast congestion is a real problem. More freight needs to move by rail, IMHO. More people too, though I know the automobile supremacists won't see it that way.

20 posted on 12/29/2016 12:56:23 PM PST by sphinx
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