HAGERSTOWN, Md. – Temporary safety measures for pedestrians and other roadway users began Sunday along U.S. Highway 40 from N. Cannon Avenue to E. Washington Avenue. The measures include narrower lanes, speed cushions to slow traffic, hardened centerlines to slow left turning traffic and high visibility crosswalk markings.
The temporary “demonstration project” is sponsored by the Maryland Department of Transportation State Highway Administration partnering with the City of Hagerstown.
Installation of the temporary improvements should be in place by Wednesday, weather permitting, project officials said. The work will require some intermittent single-lane closures both eastbound and westbound between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. The improvements will remain in place through November as data is collected on the effectiveness of the new features, they added.
The initiative is part of the State Highway Administration’s partnership with local agencies and the nonprofit Smart Growth America to deploy such projects in areas with a known history of crashes. As efforts are made to make highways safer for multimodal use, the projects will help identify methods to control speed and improve safety for pedestrians, cyclists and all other users.
The City of Hagerstown received a $22,000 grant to implement this project with a focus on addressing known safety issues and collecting data to help to advance solutions to accommodate all modes of travel and improve safety for everyone.
The City of Hagerstown developed the project through the Smart Growth America Complete Streets Leadership Academy, which provides workshops and other resources. Other areas deploying similar projects include Howard County and the Town of Bel Air in Harford County.
This initiative advances Maryland’s new Complete Streets policy, aimed at reducing traffic crashes and fatalities. For a list of all major State Highway Administration projects, people may visit Project Portal or the homepage at roads.maryland.gov. For a look at real-time traffic conditions, those interested may go to md511.maryland.gov.
