State Highways Planners to Consider Arbutus Traffic

Next Monday, an internal group of State Highway Administration managers and planners are expected to discuss chronic traffic problems in Arbutus resulting from the community’s inelegant connections to the I-695 beltway.

Several major interstates criss-cross southwest Baltimore County, including the beltway, I-95 and I-195.

To preserve as many homes and businesses as possible when the highways were designed decades ago, the community was spared a cloverleaf or other types of exit ramps that would have consumed more space.

Consequently, the Arbutus area is served by beltway ramps that seem to defy intuition and common sense.

The sole beltway exit ramp for Arbutus is from the outer loop, leading south to Southwest Boulevard, while the only entry ramp is more than 1,100 feet to the north and several blocks away on Leeds Avenue, providing access to the inner loop towards Towson.

Other exits in Lansdowne provide access to Washington Boulevard and Hollins Ferry Road.

The peculiar pattern of traffic snaking through Arbutus has long been a complaint among locals, particularly during afternoon rush hour when MARC commuters crawl bumper-to-bumper along Linden Avenue through Arbutus in order to reach the Towson-bound beltway and points elsewhere.

The choke point where Linden Avenue and Sulphur Spring Road meet Southwestern Boulevard is so severe that officers of the adjacent Arbutus Volunteer Fire Department have complained that traffic jams risk delaying the response of firefighting vehicles and medic units.

Can anything be done? Maybe, says Charlie Gischlar, spokesperson for the state highway administration.

The Southwestern Boulevard-Leeds Avenue ramp issue “has been on our radar for a long time” but is not included within existing plans to widen and upgrade the beltway, Gischlar says.

Rumors of new beltway ramps to improve access in and out of Arbutus are just that – rumors. No such plans are in the works, according to Gischlar.

A feasibility study for new entrance and exit ramps was done several years ago. “It’s something that could be built, but there’s no money for it,” he says.

“Anything we did in the Arbutus area would seriously impact residential and commercial areas,” Gischlar says. “When you have to start buying property, that’s going to drive up costs and take more time. Right now, we have to allocate every penny where it will do the most good.”

At the moment, the next major road project in this area is the replacement and widening of the Frederick Road Bridge over the beltway, which will disrupt traffic for the next two years.

In the meantime, Gischlar says that planners will discuss if there are some alternative solutions that might relieve the bottleneck of traffic through Arbutus.

“We’ll have to see if there is anything else that can be done,” he says.