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Media Credit: Zachary Burns

The College Park City Council is set to decide on dividing the Route 1 reconstruction plan into several phases in order to get the severely underfunded reconstruction underway, but shelved a presentation last night that would help decide how to prioritize the phases.

The State Highway Administration divided the highway into three segments earlier this year to help gain better county and state support and asked city officials to prioritize construction on the segments at a meeting in Annapolis in March and again in a letter in late April.

The city has yet to decide on the phase that should be worked on first or how to go about raising funds for the estimated $110 million project. In documents provided by the council, SHA officials urge the city to explore raising some of the funds from developers or through special taxing districts.

"The SHA told us we're not No. 1 on their priority list," city planner Terry Schum said in an interview last night. "Unless we move up on in the lists, we won't get help."

The phasing plan could present some difficult decisions for council members. The segments as defined by SHA vary in length, cost and numbers of business that would be displaced by construction, but contain one common theme: safety issues.

The entire corridor, according to SHA documents, had 51 percent more crashes than the state average during an eight-year stretch. And in the segment closest to the Capital Beltway, traffic accidents contributed to five deaths in the same time period. In the segment closest to the university, three pedestrians were killed along Route 1 from 1998 to 2002.

The most significant changes along the road in the reconstruction plan would be the elimination of the center "suicide" turn lane and the creation of left turn lanes and a tree-lined median. New sidewalks, bike lanes, reconfigured exit ramps and more trees along each side of the road from College Avenue to the Capital Beltway would also be added.

The changes aim to bolster pedestrian and vehicular safety and enhance the highway's aesthetics, but because of the road's age and natural topography, the changes would be highly expensive.

On the surface, the road also presents difficult issues the council will have to sort through: Segment I, the closest to the university, runs from College Avenue to University Boulevard and is by far the longest segment in the plan. It's estimated cost is about $38 million, and its reconstruction would displace four businesses.

By contrast, Segment III, the shortest of the segments, stretches from Hollywood Road to the Capital Beltway and would cost an estimated $49 million. The costs on that segment are pumped up by the costs of the nine businesses that would be displaced when the road is widened slightly to make room for bike lanes.

Segment II would be an unlikely starting point for reconstruction, council members said, because it lies in the middle and construction would have to work backwards at some point.

Beginning reconstruction on that phase at any point will likely face stiff opposition from business owners like Tammy Hnarakis, who has already been displaced twice by other projects and has become a vocal opponent of the project in her position as a leader of the North College Park Business Association.

"We have made our position very clear," Hnarakis, who owns Precision Small Engines, said. "We don't want these improvements - a four-lane, divided highway, wide sidewalks - because it takes away from all of us."

She went on to criticize city officials for leaving North College Park business owners out of the loop and complains she has been left in the dark about development meetings, such as a citywide meeting regarding an Environmental Protection Agency study of the area conducted earlier this year.

"We can make the community better without destroying the businesses that helped make the community," Hnarakis said.

But Hnarakis may be in the minority as the city charges on. Council members have been highly bullish about the project, even staging a march up Route 1 last year and storming the SHA offices in Greenbelt.

Last night, council members expressed characteristic discontent of the project, citing needs for more updated information from the SHA, more funding and more time to order the city's priorities.

"The State Highway Administration and the people who can make decisions are not listening to us," District 4 Councilwoman Joseline Peña-Melnyk said. "And it's not like we haven't tried. It would be irresponsible of us to let it go."

Peña-Melnyk, a Democratic candidate for the House of Delegates, was referring to the status of the project, which ranks relatively low on both state and county priority lists. The project is ranked No. 24 out of 31 projects in the state and last among the six projects in the county. And a recent bid for $10 million dollars from the SHA - just to finish up the design of the highway - wasn't granted, she said.

The council postponed a discussion on phasing priorities until next week's meeting.

Contact reporter Raquel Christie at christiedbk@gmail.com.

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