mdta

The board of directors of Maryland Transportation Authority (MdTA) operator of the I-95 Kennedy Highway Toll Road has approved signing of a 35 year concession on its two service plazas. The selected concessionaire Areas USA is a local subsidiary of a large established international company Grupo Areas SA head-officed in Barcelona Spain with major food concessions in 70 airports and 160 other toll and travel service plazas mostly in Europe and Latin America.

There's a new old chief of tolls in Maryland. Harold M Bartlett is returning as chief executive of the Maryland Transportation Authority (MdTA), the state's operator of eight toll facilities that collect $325m/year in tolls.

MdTA Maryland's state toll authority is moving to replace the 3,500ft, 1.1km long Canton Viaduct, a mid-1950s elevated roadway that carries 2x2 lanes of MD/I-895 over port facilities. It hoists traffic over 19 port railroad lines, truck parking areas, several local streets, and a couple of ramps of MD/I-95.

Harry Blauvelt, a wellknown sports reporter died last Monday around 10:30am on Maryland's Chesapeake Bay Bridge (CBB). He was traveling in a single eastbound lane on the older southern 2-lane span, the second lane being closed for maintenance. Blauvelt's car broke down and he stopped in the roadway - there is no shoulder. He got out of his car, which moments later was hit by a following flatbed truck driven by 63-year old Enos Sage.

ACS, A Xerox Company, Helping Maryland Drivers Get There Quicker with All-Electronic Road

Ron Freeland executive secretary of the Maryland (Toll) Transportation Authority (MdTA) for nearly the past four years is joining the engineering firm TY Lin  as mid-Atlantic director. Freeland, a quietly spoken man seems to have a talent for defusing conflict and remaining amazingly uncontroversial (and a bore for reporters) during controversies.

At the same time some interesting projects have moved forward in Freeland's period in charge - major ones being the Inter County Connector tollroad in Montgomery County north of DC, and toll lanes on I-95 north of Baltimore.

Transportation governance in the Washington DC metro area suffers from a serious surfeit of Bassos, Peter and Jack, identical twins, each of them bald guys wearing a perpetually happy smile, age mid-50s.

Maryland's Intercounty Connector (ICC or MD200) in the northern suburbs of Washington DC metro area will manage free flow with tolls that could vary between 10c/mile and 35c/mile (6c/km to 22c/km) for cars.