Calvert Gets Delay in Plan To Block Rte. 4 Left Turns

Calvert County's Board of Commissioners has been successful in delaying the state's plan to prohibit left turns from southbound Route 4 onto Brickhouse Road in Dunkirk.

Residents said they were taken aback when they learned recently of the State Highway Administration's proposal from a sign posted on Route 4. But Calvert's commissioners requested a delay, which the state granted until a public discussion can take place in the coming weeks.

"Some members of that area thought that it was a mistake," Robert Arscott, president of the Dunkirk Area Concerned Citizens Association, said of the plan to prohibit the left turns. "Why are they even making that change?"

Kimberly Tran, the state highway agency's traffic engineer for greater Southern Maryland, said safety concerns, especially fatalities at the intersection, were the reason for the proposal.

Despite efforts by the state to correct some of the problems in 2002, there was still confusion between left-turning vehicles on Route 4 and those on Brickhouse Road, Tran said. After the most recent fatal accident at Route 4 and Brickhouse Road in November 2007, the Highway Administration took a new look at traffic patterns there.

"The left turns into Brickhouse and left turns out of Brickhouse, both are looking for the same gap in traffic," Tran said. "We really felt that removing either one of those movements from the intersection would remove that confusion."

There were 27 accidents at Route 4 and Brickhouse Road from 2005 to 2008. Three involved fatalities. Eighteen of the crashes were from vehicles making a left turn from Brickhouse Road, according to an Aug. 11 letter from Lee Starkloff, the agency's district engineer.

The Highway Administration chose to prohibit the left turn for vehicles on southbound Route 4 because fewer vehicles would be affected, and the alternative route of diverting southbound vehicles onto Route 260 to make the right turn at the new signal at Brickhouse Road would be safer, Tran said.

The state plans to rework the traffic light at Route 260 and Brickhouse Road to ease congestion and to monitor the intersection to make sure the temporary curbing that would be installed to close off the turn is working properly, Tran said.

Prohibiting a left turn from Brickhouse Road onto Route 4 would affect more vehicles than the state's preferred route, she said. Adding a traffic light at Brickhouse Road and Route 4 would increase rear-end collisions and stall northbound traffic, Tran said.

"State Highway still believes our solution is still the right approach," Tran said.

Commissioner Linda L. Kelley (R-At Large) asked agency officials to explain their plan.

"I wanted to see the data they had to make that decision," Kelley said. "I think the situation needs to be aired publicly. Maybe that is the best solution. I don't know. But we also have a responsibility to the folks who will be horribly inconvenienced by that."