Counties Want Fewer Residents Spinning Wheels

Now, developers that choose not to lay sidewalks must pay into a fund that covers the cost of connecting critical areas throughout the county, such as linking schools with older subdivisions where the developers are long gone. Neighborhoods in Charles were designed with sidewalks that start and stop at subdivision entrances. The planned community of St. Charles has trails for walkers and bikers within its individual villages, but the paths are not tied to each other or the St. Charles Towne Center Mall.

As the county grows, developers are starting to link new projects with older ones. A planned sidewalk and footbridge will make it possible to walk from Waldorf's movie theater to a new complex of six restaurants, said Craig Renner, a spokesman for American Community Properties Trust, the developer of St. Charles.

Still, Renner said, Route 301 remains a barrier to connecting neighborhoods separated by the state highway.

A study by the Coalition for Smarter Growth last year named Spotsylvania and Charles the Washington-Baltimore area's two most dangerous counties in which to walk.

Larger counties and cities had more fatal accidents involving pedestrians in 2002 and 2003. The report found that the District and Montgomery County, for instance, each had 25 deaths during the same period that Spotsylvania recorded four and Charles six.

But as a percentage of the walking population, the numbers are troubling to Kevin McCarty of the Surface Transportation Policy Project, a co-author of the danger index.

"You don't have a lot of people walking," he said, "and you still have people being killed at a higher rate."

Charles officials are not alarmed by the ranking, they say, because small numbers can produce dramatically different results from one year to the next.

"I don't think we are anywhere near emergency level, but we recognize we have issues," said Umling, the planning director. Maryland transportation officials said that until Charles decides that sidewalks are a priority for Route 301, the State Highway Administration will discourage people from walking and crossing there.

"We don't want people to start on one side, get halfway across and be unsure if they have some place to get to on the other side," said David Buck, a spokesman for the highway administration.

Poised on the edge of a grassy median on Route 301, Gordon Thurston turns his head with the rush-hour rhythm as he waits for an opening in the two lanes of traffic. The lights are timed for cars, not people, so Thurston picks a spot in the middle. When the cars begin to back up, he knows the light is about to change, and he's off.

"It's unbelievable," said Thurston, who walks the half-mile from his home in White Plains to work at Jimmie's Cut Rate Liquor.

"Just one mistake, and that's it."