Beyond the Asphalt 05-11-2026

Maryland State Highway Administrators Charlie Gischlar and Andrew Radcliffe sit down with Rachann to explore the planned completion of the Westminster Community Trail Loop and unexpected facts about Maryland state highways. 

They pull back the curtain on the fast‑lane dangers faced by state highway workers, the real story behind the buffer lane, and the world of test gardens and pollinator green spaces thriving along Maryland’s roadsides. 

It’s a conversation about how people and nature can thrive together when design, safety, and stewardship meet in the right place. 

MDOT SHA MD27 MD140 to Hahn Rd CL3945179

Home roads.maryland.gov

Construction Resumes on Westminster Boardwalk, Final Phase of Community Trail Project - Carroll News | Carroll Publications | Carroll County, MD

MD-Westminster, MD - Official Website | Official Website

Howard County Bird Club

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Today's podcast is brought to you by Mariah Bellmanor Kennel, offering dog boarding, bathing, and daycare in an eco-friendly environment. Our pet care with a personal touch is not just a motto, it's really what we do. Our touch extends to the food without preservatives, quality and natural shampoos, inclusive boarding, and a green living environment. Sounds like I might want to check in. Visit us anytime on our Facebook page, Mariah Bellmanor Kennel, or Mariah Bellmanor Kennel.com. Enjoy your program. Welcome to Raising Connections, connecting your community to others through critters, companions, commerce, and agriculture. I'm Ray Shan Mayer. Let's raise some connections. Here we go. Today, as always, we have some fun and interesting guests and guests that you've requested. Welcome, Charlie and Andrew.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

Thanks for welcome.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Charlie, can you introduce yourself and tell where you're from?

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Yes, my name is Charlie Gishler. I work with the Maryland Department of Transportation State Highway Administration, Deputy Director of Communications.

SPEAKER_02 0:59

Andrew? Good morning, Andrew Radcliffe. I'm the district engineer for District 7 of the State Highway Administration. So that includes Carroll, Frederick, and Howard County. They're essentially responsible for anything that goes on in those three places.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

That's a lot of areas of responsibility and a lot of things to communicate effectively. The two of you are the hub.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

Andrew's the real star here.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

As you both nod your head and don't say a word. Yes. What has brought us here today is the community trail in Westminster are casually known as CL394. What do those numbers translate to? What does that mean to us when we see it?

SPEAKER_02 1:35

Oh, so the contract number, any construction contract we have is a standard numbering procedure, and the CL is Carroll County. There was a contract in Frederick, it would be FR. And the 394 is what makes it unique for that project and that location.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

And that number refers to, and that project refers to the boardwalk, is what a lot of folks have casually called it. They're in Westminster. And the place that many folks see it is where 140 and 27 come together.

SPEAKER_02 2:02

Yes. The boardwalk is very visible from around 27, so that's why I think a lot of people refer to it as the boardwalk. And that is a big part of the project, but overall it's a shared use path connection that's part of a greater loop around Westminster that's been built in phases since like 2010. And this is the last big piece where we're connecting the sidewalk in downtown Westminster, essentially up to Bennett Surf Park near Han Road.

SPEAKER_00 2:25

If it's been going since 2010, I don't think it's all boardwalk. It's multiple surfaces, multiple places. Walk us through it, if you will.

SPEAKER_02 2:32

Sure. Typically a shared use path is more than likely going to be asphalt, about eight to ten foot wide. Because some of this is in downtown Westminster, this overall path, a lot of it is regular concrete sidewalk. What makes this unique is this area we had to cross through Longwell Run. It's a floodplain and very environmentally sensitive area. So to install an asphalt path where we're digging into the ground for that amount of square footage would be very invasive and it would have probably had to result in a lot of environmental mitigation and stream restoration that would have been cost prohibitive to the project. Working early on in design with the environmental permitting team, we found that a boardwalk would be an acceptable solution. And to take a step back, even with an asphalt path, there were a couple places we would have had to cross the creek. So there would have been a structure regardless. And we thought to minimize impacts to the floodplain, the sensitive area boardwalk was a good solution to help get the project permitted and provide this pedestrian like.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

If we want to visit or take a walk through the entire boardwalk, how do we do that? Where do we start?

SPEAKER_02 3:31

Literally, the Westminster Community Trail loops around the entire general city area. But once this is finished here later this year, we did have some hiccups with some utility conflicts, but the boardwalk specific area, you'd probably want to enter up around the Bennett Surf Park area on the north end. This project, the southern limits would be Tuck Road, right there on the outskirts of downtown Westminster. Between that area and really where 27 and 140 meet, in between those limits, is where the boardwalk itself will be.

SPEAKER_00 4:00

A vision for a walk path around Westminster for the community is something that's a huge project. Where did this vision start?

SPEAKER_02 4:09

It really started in 2010 at the county level, developing a master plan for the Westminster Community Trail Loop. A lot of the path of that trail is along state highways. So that's where we've partnered in the past and then with the current project to build those sections that are along the state highway portions. The county and the city has also built some of the other sections that go through the communities or go through Bennett Surf Park and some of those other connections.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

It's my understanding that this project has been well received and very much looked forward to. The last phase of it was, again, the most attention getting simply because there's a boardwalk that we would associate with Ocean City going along Route 27. Was that a fun portion for you or was that a very trying portion?

SPEAKER_02 4:49

It's been an interesting portion. I'll say that. It draws a lot of attention. It's unique. You don't see that everywhere. It's more of an ocean city kind of design. So we've had a good time explaining the why as the questions have come up, like why are we building this here? And it's been a very unique just construction project for us. That's just not something state highway builds every day either. So looking forward to the finished product.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

When do you think it will be finished? That's always a million dollar question, maybe a 4.2 million dollar question.

SPEAKER_02 5:15

Right. We have a project portal page we keep up to date right now. We're projected to complete in fall of 2026. We have had some delays due to utility conflicts. Again, going back to the environmentally sensitive area we were in. We couldn't do a lot of preliminary digging during design to find them. The utilities that is, we relied on records. Turns out some of those records weren't completely accurate, and it's caused us to have to shift the trail alignment and go back through a permitting process. But the contractor's back working again to finish it up.

SPEAKER_00 5:42

The vision that was on the master plan was from entering at Tuck or Bennett Surf Park and coming around Westminster. At Bennett Surf, there is a lovely dog park. There's a community park there. Is that where you would encourage people to park and then begin their activities along the walkway?

SPEAKER_02 5:59

That's certainly a good option. That's probably one of the closer public places to park and have access to this new section we're building.

SPEAKER_00 6:06

Where I'm from in Indiana, back in the day, a lot of our rails to trails conversions have been very successful. And it brings the communities together for activities and healthy living. I'm assuming that that is part of what the mission for this trail is.

SPEAKER_02 6:19

Yep, it's about providing a safe way to recreate and just connecting a lot of points of interest around the city, residential to recreation to the downtown commercial area to jobs, just another way to get around for recreation or just for daily commuting, even.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

Yeah, we're serious about safety at M. And our vulnerable road users is something that has become a very big, big positive issue. We have a lot of information about it on our website. We encourage you to go there for this project and generally at roads.maryland.gov. You can click on projects to get more information. But yes, we're really lay out some amenities to protect our vulnerable road users, our pedestrians and our bicyclists, scooter riders, that type of thing.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

As part of the seriousness about safety, not only is keeping the users safe, but the multiple users at one time. You've got bikers, you've got hikers, you've got dog walkers. I anticipate, and I bet you anticipate this being an active trail. What advice would you have for the users?

SPEAKER_02 7:13

The great thing about shared use paths, and this one in particular is they're they're wider than the normal sidewalks. We're looking more like eight feet, ten feet. So it allows for the kind of like that shared usage, two-way traffic. My advice would be just to watch out for one another, stick to the right side when you are using it, especially for the bicyclists, just past pedestrians with care. Ultimately, this will be owned and maintained by the Carroll County Recreation Department. So I'm not sure what guidelines they might put out with how they operate their parks if they're closed at dusk or after a certain time.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

Are there hiker and biker trail activity stops planned along this trail?

SPEAKER_02 7:48

Not by state highway. I'm not sure if the county may eventually do anything like that. Our mission here is just to provide that missing link for the R loop.

SPEAKER_00 7:55

So building the decks where we might see some of those if we're at the ocean city or if we're in some of the Asacheak Islands and there's little observation decks off the walkway, we're not gonna be seeing those. That's a little bit out of the purview of this project.

SPEAKER_02 8:06

Correct. We're just sticking to the mission of providing a pathway.

SPEAKER_00 8:09

And the mission of the pathway is to keep everyone safe and good and serious about safety. Are there cameras or police on bicycles? How will this be monitored?

SPEAKER_01 8:19

That's probably gonna be up to the local jurisdiction. There are we're not an enforcement agency, so I I would imagine it would be up to local governments over there.

SPEAKER_00 8:28

Andrew, you've been highly involved in the project known as CL 394, which is the trail surrounding Westminster, part of the master plan. What's your role in this project?

SPEAKER_02 8:39

My role and the role of my team is to execute the construction contract, build the path, and then turn it over to county for ultimate maintenance.

SPEAKER_00 8:47

There have been a lot of bumps and humps, literally and figuratively, in this path. There's multiple uses of this path. Can you describe what the area looks like?

SPEAKER_02 8:55

This particular portion of the Westminster Community Trail, it's a mixture. It starts as a concrete sidewalk as we're coming out of the downtown of Westminster, and it's just to an asphalt path, and then where we have to cross environmentally sensitive areas, we are installing a boardwalk to limit the impacts of those areas.

SPEAKER_00 9:11

And that's the boardwalk that we're seeing along Route 140 and 27. Lots of attention there. Charlie, what is your position? What is your involvement here?

SPEAKER_01 9:20

Well, I try to support the district office about promoting this trail, keeping everybody up to date on where we stand with construction. Like Andrew was suggesting. We did have a couple of snags with utilities. We keep that project page up to date very regularly through our community relations person there at the district office, and we're going to probably be issuing a press release once it's completed. That way we can announce at the completion, people could start using it. Mine's to communicate basically what's going on with the trail.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

And you've got the voice to communicate.

SPEAKER_01 9:48

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 9:49

Are there portions of the trail that are currently open?

SPEAKER_02 9:51

No, not of this particular project. It will all open at one time once we're finished. There are other sections of the Westminster community trail outside of this project. Those are all open and ready to use.

SPEAKER_00 10:02

Aha. That may be where we have the idea that part of it's ready and part of it's not. So the community trail is different than the trail that we're discussing today.

SPEAKER_02 10:10

Yes, this is a section of the community trail. So it's providing that missing link from the edge of Bennett Surf Park into downtown Westminster.

SPEAKER_00 10:18

One of the things I think might be difficult if I were sitting in your chairs, how do you get pedestrians through traffic zones and across areas? We're seeing the area of the boardwalk between 27 and Route 140 there at the intersection, but they're coming from Bennett Surf. How do you actually get people around the traffic safely?

SPEAKER_02 10:38

Most of the path is buffered off of Maryland 27, and it does go under 140. It really doesn't have any road crossings other than crossing Han Road to get into Bennett Surf Park, which is a much lower volume road than having to cross the state highway.

SPEAKER_00 10:50

So a lot of thought was put into this project to make sure that our folks were safe, traffic was not impeded, and pathways were really clear and good. The master plan had some serious safety thoughts going into this. Earlier in the conversation, we talked about work zone safety and we talked about what that means. Charlie, what is work zone safety?

SPEAKER_01 11:11

Work zone safety, it's a two-way street, actually. Work zone safety means that we want all the highway workers to be in the proper PPE personal protection equipment and that they're highly visible, and that what we call the maintenance traffic is established in a way that uh protects them. More importantly, we want drivers to do their part. Every day in Maryland, there's about 300 work zones, not all a state highway, but uh county. You know, you have utility companies, treat contractors that are in the road among traffic. We've had some issues, and a couple of years ago, we had that tragedy that occurred on the Baltimore Beltway, and we have to take extra precautions. Now we do have variable speed limits through the Beltway project, if you're familiar with that. It's a 19-mile project in each direction. So basically 38 miles, we're gonna enable people to eventually use that shoulders for part-time shoulder use during the peak hours. Our travel forecasting has shown that it's gonna be very significant savings, up to a half hour in the afternoon. So that's pretty significant. But that's a large, large work zone there. And again, that's where that tragedy occurred. Last year we had 19 people clock doing in excess of 130 miles an hour.

SPEAKER_00 12:17

130 miles an hour in a work zone.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

That is uh going through that big work zone there. So it's unacceptable, dangerous behavior that we're trying to communicate with people, and that's why we have to take some extra countermeasures at times, like maybe taking a buffer lane, maybe putting up more barrier, because it's unacceptable to have that kind of speed. That's dangerous. And then the physics takes over. You know, you can't win if there's an incident. And most of these drivers, your reaction time, if you're going that fast, is cut significantly, so you don't have time to react and recover if something does occur, like blowout or something like that. What we've done was we have a tiered fine system now. It's not just for the beltway project, it is for all the work zones that we have established the automated enforcement zones. We had that on several of our projects throughout the state, but the most of them you'll see is going to be on that beltway project there. But it's a tiered system that's higher fees when there's workers present in there. And people know that because there's a flashing light on top of the variable speed limit sign. We just need people to do their part and keep everybody safe so everybody goes home in one piece each day.

SPEAKER_00 13:19

Everybody wants to get their loved ones home in one piece at the end of the day. When there is a work zone, oftentimes there's a rubber necking effect that goes on. And I'm sure that's something that when the work zones are established is very much considered. Can you walk us through that process?

SPEAKER_01 13:33

Yeah, it depends on what kind of a work zone we're dealing with here. Interstate has different kinds of maintenance of traffic than a cottole crew, let's say it. That's technically a work zone, a mobile work zone. Andrew, you might be able to get into it a little bit more specifics about how we consider the maintenance of traffic, but it has a lot to do with speeds, the post-speed limit, and what kind of road it is, whether it's an interstate, U.S. route, arterial, even the back road somewhere. So I think Andrew might be able to hit that a little more. He's an engineer.

SPEAKER_02 14:00

All the work zone setups, like Charlie said, it takes into account the type of road we're on, the speed we're given. And ideally, we're having people slow down. And in some cases, especially lately, we've been more cognizant if if we can to take a buffer lane, although that may cause some traffic congestion, that creates a safer condition for our workers when traffic's going by a little slower, especially if there is a rubber necking effect. But we have seen a lot of the not just the rubber necking, but the distracted driving. We'll have crashes not necessarily in our work zone, but because of the queue or the barrels or the change in traffic pattern might come on, people just aren't paying their full time and attention to what they're doing.

SPEAKER_00 14:32

They get used to going through the area the way it is or the way it was.

SPEAKER_01 14:37

With that inattentive driving, you could travel the Atlantic of a football field doing 55 miles an hour within just a few seconds. That means you weren't paying attention. So we need people to park any distractions and concentrate on the road.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

Do you find that the distracted driving, it used to be the radio or changing the tape or the CD, and now it's more of the phones. Have the phones caused the increase in accidents? Or is it just people having more on their minds?

SPEAKER_01 15:01

Yes. Since we've seen the smartphone technology go from a flip phone to now these are basically computers that have a phone aspect to it. So people just want to see that there's this way now that they can't wait. We want people to wait to read text until you get to a parking lot or home or whatever and use Bluetooth technology for any kind of voice communications. We'd still rather you just drive, but Bluetooth technology's come a long way and your eyes are on the road and not looking down. It's the person that's looking down at a phone and trying to type an email or a text going at highway speeds. That's what's scary, dangerous, and dangerous to other drivers. But you know, a lot of people in work zones and the inattentive driver, they're the ones who get hurt the most. Them are their occupants in the vehicle. So a little bit of planning, paying attention, driving the post-speed limit. Everybody get home in one piece.

SPEAKER_00 15:50

That's what we want. I know for me, it's always the bee. It seems like every time I go through a work section, if I roll my windows up, I'm good. But if not, I get a bee in the car and I'm flapping my hands and trying to get the bee out. And boy, that's a distraction right there.

SPEAKER_01 16:02

Well, that's happened to every one of us. And yeah, I'm not a big fan of wasps either in the car. And I've had that actually recently happen because it started getting warm. So it's it's not fun. Even there, what you want to do is try to don't panic, just poople off as soon as you can, get as far up the road as you can and get them out. Get it out. Get them out.

SPEAKER_00 16:19

Along the project that we've been talking about, the community trailway, part of this project involved the pollinators. There were a lot of protected areas that you had to work with, and that's where the vision of the boardwalk came from. How are the pollinators involved in a state highway project and in a community trail?

SPEAKER_01 16:37

Well, let me back up a little bit. I'll let Andrew answer part of that one as it pertains to the actual project. But we've had a very aggressive pollinator program here in the state for many years, right? We want natural pollinating plants. We're trying to get rid of the invasive type of species, like cattle repairs, that type of thing. They're very beautiful to look at, but they're very dangerous. But we do try to attract pollinators, and we do a lot of this through demonstrating gardens. We have throughout many of our properties, we have seven engineering districts here, plus our Hanover complex and our headquarters where I'm at. We do have demonstrating gardens out there that show what kind of plants are there and what they attract. You know, like the milkweed, for instance, is a big thing that brings in the monarch butterflies. And that's something, you know, the monarch's been going down in population. We're trying to do our little part in trying to attract them. There's a lot of consideration that goes on with that because we do have some section of highway down on in Queen Anne's County where we have a garden with such a wide shoulder, it's not going to put the animals, meaning the insects, in any kind of danger with the we call it the mortality rate from the highway. So there's a lot of planning that goes on like this. Andrew could probably speak more to how it's helping and beautifying and kind of goes hand in hand with the trail. So I would imagine our Office of Environmental Design has some plants that are going to go in there that are native to the area.

SPEAKER_02 17:52

Definitely. That's a big part of it. It's a bigger part of what we're doing at State Highway. I can look out my window here at District 7 and see a pollinator garden that we've installed within the last year. Another good example is I-70 in Howard County, where we have a wider median. Obviously, keep your eyes on road, but if you notice there are signs now that designate it as a pollinator area, both for education and to remind our workers, our contractors, not to mow there during certain times. I can't speak to the exact plants that we're incorporating with the trail, but pollinators are a big part of everything we're doing now with what we look into with landscaping.

SPEAKER_01 18:23

He brings up a very important part because we do put up those pollinator signs for our maintenance crews not to go in there every now and then it happens, you know, in the past. We work hard and all of a sudden it looks like a golf course. But we've really brought everybody on the same page now with these signs. And it's worth noting because we get complaints. A lot of people are like, well, why does it look so unkempt in that median and not like a golf course? And that's the reason why, because we're trying to establish these pollinator gardens using native plants or native species to Maryland. But again, we do put that in areas where they're not too close to the road, they have wide medians, and we put those signs up. That's good we're having this conversation because I'd like to tell people we're pretty aggressive when it comes to trimming, especially as it pertains to sight distance at areas. We don't want to impair anybody's sight with growth. And if we start getting a lot of rain and then hot weather, it's you can almost hear it growing. It grows so quickly. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 19:12

A lot of these gardens would look like meadows because the meadows that may be what makes them look unkept.

SPEAKER_01 19:17

Yeah, we used to say that. We used to call them meadows. I forgot the name of the program we used to have way back. I've been here 23 years. It was like right when I first started. It's a neat program, it's very cool. It's our little part of doing that. We encourage folks if you go visit one of our facilities, take a look at the demonstrating gardens there. It's very interesting.

SPEAKER_00 19:33

When we go through in the spring, we had folks visiting, and many of the folks commented on the beautiful daffodils on the roadside. Are those part of the program?

SPEAKER_01 19:40

Years and years ago, we did mowing reduction and we did a wildflower program here. We actually had a poster made for that, the wildflower program. That's probably left over from that because I do see the black-eyed Susans. If you go to Andrew's district on Maryland 32, where we recently widened it, we have a very beautiful area of black-eyed Susans that should start to be coming up now, I assume, Andrew, right? But it's near our Dayton shop over there in Dayton.

SPEAKER_00 20:05

And that's where the big snow plow is beautifully painted and sitting out on the corner.

SPEAKER_01 20:09

Exactly. It's just kind of cool. And it also helps us reduce mowing as well, I guess, in our own little way there, but it's really neat looking. What you're seeing is remnants of the old wildflower program.

SPEAKER_00 20:19

Something that you brought up really resonated with me. Getting through the construction zones, getting the bee in my car, that's not a cool thing. Getting over and getting the bee out, but also the state highway administration being careful where those gardens are placed because the mortality of the insects.

SPEAKER_01 20:34

Exactly. That's something that our landscape engineers carefully select areas where we're not putting any animals in harm's way at all, but to also give them an escape route that they're not in danger. They go out and they evaluate it, and they've been pretty successful gardens.

SPEAKER_00 20:47

Interesting. So when we're going around there on 32 District 7, coming up through that area and where the new expansion's been, there's been bushes that have been planted, the medians have been readdressed. Sometimes there's a concern about deer. And if we're creating these habitats where there's insects, there's foliage, does that increase or decrease the deer?

SPEAKER_01 21:06

Well, you know, the deer population, when you have the growth, the habitat is changing right now. So that is actually one of the big driving factors there. There's a lot of white-tailed deer in the state of Maryland. Now we're starting to see bear coming down from Western Maryland and spots and other kinds of wildlife. So it's interesting you bring that up because we are trying to work with our environmental design folks, like the Intercounty Connector down in Montgomery County, Maryland 200. We designed certain sections of that area with sound wall and fencing and oversized culverts so that we can get the deer underneath of the road and rather than on top. So that is something that we're interested in doing when we can. We're trying to get something together right now, like almost like a heat map internally to show us where we're getting a lot of the vehicle animal collisions and that type of thing. So we're very cognizant of that. And as we get approached the rut in late summer, early fall, we do a lot of Proactive messaging for folks because it's not a very pleasant experience to hit a deer. I think everybody has. It's not fun. And it's very scary and it's dangerous.

SPEAKER_00 22:08

In the past we had seen a lot of fencing along highways. I'm seeing a lot of less fencing and more different types of bushes or thickets. Am I just seeing things that I want to see, or is there a movement to reduce the fencing and go with more walls?

SPEAKER_01 22:25

If we do significant improvements, then we have to put sound walls up. So that's kind of thing there. We do do some fencing all along. We don't take it out. Occasionally, though, a vehicle will take it out. So some of our barrier takes a beating sometimes from people who aren't paying attention. We're going too fast behind the wheel. We're sadly driving intoxicated.

SPEAKER_00 22:41

That happens, unfortunately. One of the other things that has been a concern, as the communities expand and communities change, there becomes a homeless population. And that homeless population can often use some of the open areas for temporary housing. How is that handled?

SPEAKER_01 22:57

We work with local advocacy groups and counties, and a lot of times we will have to maintain these areas. You can't have the litter build up, and we'll get into litter in a second. But we do work with local advocacy groups and that type of thing. And then we go in and clean the again. We're not an enforcement agency. Sometimes we do bring the police with us, not for anything other than just to make sure everybody's calm. While we're cleaning, we want to make sure we're tidying up the roadsides as well, especially the uh interchanges.

SPEAKER_00 23:23

Absolutely. You brought up litter, and both with the community walkway and well as our state highways, litter is a big problem. I would assume that there's a budget to deal with litter, and there's containers for litter and getting people to put litter in its place. Tell us about this. It seems like a never-ending battle.

SPEAKER_01 23:41

Litter is not only ugly, but it's expensive too. Litter is part of our normal maintenance activity as well. But several times a year, we do something called Operation Clean Sweep Maryland, which is an all hands-on deck litter effort for that week. When I say all hands-on-deck, that means our maintenance crews, our contracting crews, and our inmate crews all together working on nothing but litter, unless, of course, there's some kind of an emergency, like a pothole that needs to be filled or something. But we call that Operation Clean Sweep Maryland. It's almost like doing a deep clean and then a dusting in between. We do it before the start of the mowing season. We do it before the high travel holidays, and we're coming up on Memorial Day. So we'll be doing that again about a week before Memorial Day for 4th of July, for Labor Day, and before the November holidays. That way we're literally rolling out the green carpet for folks. And we have an education campaign that we're about to start. And through messaging that I do and my team, we're trying to educate people about litter. In 2025, we collected over five million pounds of litter and debris from Maryland roadways, the roads that we maintain, which are the state-numbered non-toll roads in the interstate.

SPEAKER_00 24:46

Wait a minute, say that again. How many pounds?

SPEAKER_01 24:48

Five million pounds.

SPEAKER_00 24:50

Wow. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 24:51

And that costs more than 16.5 million dollars just in calendar year 2025. Now, if you consider that, all right, if you consider a construction project that has federal funding, that's an 80-20% match. The government will give us 80% if we give them 20%. So with almost$17 million, that's almost$20 million. We could be doing a nearly$100 million construction project every year if we didn't have to pay for this kind of litter. Litter is not only ugly, like I said, and expensive, like I said, but it also hampers and really slows up our maintenance activity. It can become a danger to our maintenance workers and to our equipment. It can damage our equipment, but it also affects drainage in a very negative way. People don't stop to think about how important drainage is both in the summer and wintertime. In the wintertime, a lot of people are like, why are you just clearing the shoulders out? Well, that's where a lot of our drainage facilities are. And if you don't have positive drainage, then you're going to get ice in the winter. In the summer, you get these gullibuster storms, you know, that can produce an inch or two of rain an hour. So we need that drainage to be free and unobstructed with litter or debris. It also affects the Chesapeake Bay watershed because that's where everything eventually goes, you know, unless you're in Garrick County, then it kind of goes into the Mississippi watershed. The opposite way. Um let me ask this question.

SPEAKER_00 26:06

What is litter? Is litter the stuff that we're rolling down our window and purposefully throwing out the fast food containers? Is litter that we're hauling something and it's the plastic wrapper coming off of it? Or is litter the car parts after an accident?

SPEAKER_01 26:20

Or all of it. Okay. So it's a big thing. All the above. Yeah. But but some of that's unavoidable. You know, we we do try to get out there and get the car, you know, parts and get the area cleaned up, you know, after a crash, sadly. But litter starts as trash, okay, in your in a vehicle. Uh it could be anything as small as a cigarette butt, or it can be uh plastic food. We see a lot of fast food uh things out there. I encourage your audience to go to uh uh Maryland State Highway Administration on Facebook. We have some pretty incredible pictures there that uh actually from uh Andrew's district uh he he has a uh communications liaison there that had puts together a really interesting thing that shows you what we find out there a lot. But you know, we also see a lot of um illegal dumping as well. Now again, we're not we're not enforcement agency, but that's you know, we see a lot of tires out there, uh a lot of couches, a lot of just anything you you can think about. And so that takes a lot of time. Again, it can be dangerous if it's a large piece of debris or or uh you know, like the tire and somebody's rolling it, it could end up in another side of the road somewhere, and somebody could hit that or swerve to miss it and hit something else or someone else. So it's just a problem all around that we have. So that's what we've been trying to tackle and educate people where litter goes, why it's bad, and what can be done if we didn't have to pick up litter like this every time.

SPEAKER_00 27:45

When you're going an engineering capacity, I'm sure this is considered both when there's a construction zone as well as a long-term build. If there's that debris in the area and something happens, when that crash happens, how are the emergency vehicles figured into the plan and the structure of the roads?

SPEAKER_01 28:02

You're bringing up some very important parts. There's a couple of things here. We have something called the move overlaw, especially for first responders, but that that goes with anything with the flashing lights. And we even prefer it if you move over if you see a disabled vehicle, that's the worst place to be, is on the side of an interstate if you're disabled.

SPEAKER_00 28:17

Because move over law. That move over law means you have to slow down how many miles an hour or move over.

SPEAKER_01 28:22

Well, or how does that really work? Move over if you can. If you can't, slow down below the post-it speed limit. Because we've had some partnerships with local police departments and state police where they would pull people over for not moving over. And they would usually give them instead of a citation at first, they would give them some educational materials about why, some stats and that type of thing. But if you can't move over, then slow down significantly and then it speed up again to the post-it speed limit. For folks that do become disabled, and this is something that I need folks to really remember, okay? Because it's happened pretty much everybody. You break down with a flat tire or something. We need you to get as far off the road as you possibly can. Activate your four-ways. Here's the big important part here. Stay inside your vehicle. We've seen some horrible consequences when people become pedestrians when they get out of their vehicle and they get struck. So remain inside, dial pound 7-7 on a state road. That'll get you to the nearest Maryland State Police Barrack or just simply 911. But the big thing there is to move as far off the road as you can. And also they the state police and us have a partnership called Move It. If you get in a minor crash, hopefully you won't, but if you do, you don't have to stay right where you are. They have ways to determine who's at fault and that type of thing. You can move it off to the side of the road. You don't have to stay in the travel lane. So it's called Move It.

SPEAKER_00 29:35

I had no idea. But you just blew me away. And I've been driving for well more than a few years. And my thought was if I pull over, my first thought is I look behind me, I see when there's a break in the traffic, I open the door and I go see what happened. Call pound 77.

SPEAKER_01 29:52

Especially at night and along the interstates. We see it every year. Somebody gets out, you know, to check on something. Yeah, maybe they become disabled, they come out. That's why we say get as far off the road as you can. If you have to, if you can exit the highway completely and find a parking spot somewhere, then you're safe to get out. But that that's a dangerous place to be on the side of an interstate if you're disabled.

SPEAKER_00 30:11

Are there design features that are designed into the road structures that allow the emergency vehicles to access disabled vehicles?

SPEAKER_02 30:20

That's what comes to mind to me is making sure we have those shoulders for disabled vehicles for people to pull off out of the main lines of traffic. You know, in certain instances where we if we have like a long work zone, let's say where the shoulder is closed with barrier wall, we do have standards to every so often provide a break and to have that shoulder to be able to pull off of rather than completely closing a shoulder for a long stretch. But the biggest the safety design feature is having that shoulder on the right side.

SPEAKER_00 30:44

I have used those before. As a person who uses trails in Maryland and as a person who uses highways in Maryland, pulling a horse trailer. I yes, as you both nod, yes. What do we need to know if we are pulling a livestock or horse trailer and we become disabled? What do we do with that?

SPEAKER_01 31:00

Kind of the same thing if you can get off the road as far as you can or off completely. But again, I think you're required with any kind of trailers to have hazard lights stick in on the back of the trailer. But yeah, I can see it's it's big. But my advice there would be to try to get off the road completely if possible, if not, just as far off as you possibly can and dial the authorities so they can come out and provide a level of protection for you.

SPEAKER_00 31:22

Oftentimes a lot of folks pulling a RV or a trailer don't really want to pull off too far because the road goes down. There's a ditch or a culvert. How should we handle that?

SPEAKER_01 31:33

Again, if you can get completely off the side of the road, but just get off as far as you can and see and be seen. Make sure all your vehicle lighting systems are are working, especially your hazards in case that happens. And I would say in that situation where if you don't have a lot of room, again, remain inside your vehicle, but also get a hold of the authorities quick because they'll get a hold of us. So if you dial Pallet 77, that's going to go to the state police and then they'll contact us if it's on the side of a road that we maintain, and we'll pull up behind you with an aero board and all kinds of stuff with our highway responders. That way we can offer protection. Again, this is key for motorists. That's why we like to tell them, even if it's not an emergency vehicle or an amber light on the side of the roadway, if you see your fellow driver on the side of the road, get them the space they need and to feel safe and maybe pull over anyway as a precaution or slow down. We're getting that word out very aggressively, especially as we approach Work Zone Safety Awareness Week coming up.

SPEAKER_00 32:20

We've got a lot of folks getting ready to pull out boats and RVs and horse trailers, and there's going to be a lot of use.

SPEAKER_01 32:26

Farm equipment too.

SPEAKER_00 32:26

Farm equipment's a big deal. Hayes season's going to be coming in. Slow down, look around. You've got bicyclists. I have one question that's been a hot and burning debate. Charlie, this one's just for you. Motorcycles.

SPEAKER_01 32:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 32:38

Splitting lanes. What do we do? Do we do it? Do we not do it? And what do we do if it happens?

SPEAKER_01 32:44

When you say splitting lanes, are you talking about when motorcycles and those high performance bikes just go right between cars? That's dangerous behavior and it's against the law too, I do believe.

SPEAKER_00 32:54

So in Maryland, it's against the law.

SPEAKER_01 32:55

Motorcyclists, and we're gonna see more and more of them. We need people to do the head check too, not just use your mirrors because bikes are small and they can hide out in your in the blind spots of a vehicle. So I always suggest look in your mirrors, but also do a head check too to make sure you're not turning into a motorcyclist. But also, motorcyclists should also obey the rules of the road. I've seen them and they're going over a hundred miles an hour, and you know, I'm driving along and it's enough to scare you as a driver. So we need everybody to obey the basic rules of the road, including the speed limits and passing people when appropriate.

SPEAKER_00 33:24

Absolutely. As a motorcyclist and as a horseback rider, I sometimes prefer to put the motorcycles in the horse trailer and get somewhere. It's a lot easier, a lot safer sometimes. What is the vision for that trail? When is our completion and when can we get on it? How do we use it?

SPEAKER_02 33:38

We're expecting the project to be fully complete by the fall of this year. And that point it'll be open to the public and complete that Westminster community trail loop. It's adding that missing link from Bennett Surf Park into downtown Westminster. So you can access it through existing walkways that are already established that connect to it, or you or park at Bennett Surf Park to be able to access the specific boardwalk area that'll be under the 27 and 140 interchange.

SPEAKER_00 34:02

As an engineer, what was the most challenging part of that project for you?

SPEAKER_02 34:05

This was a very challenging environmentally sensitive area. It's a priority for us to provide that pedestrian link, but we also want to not heavily impact the environmental area in Longwell Run, which is essentially that area below 140 where the 27 interchanges, and figure out a design that accomplishes our mission of providing the pedestrian connectivity, but also respects the environmental area. And that's where we settled on with the environmental regulators, the uh the boardwalk design through that area. So very unique design. Probably won't see it anywhere else in the district, maybe not many places in the state, but it kind of accomplishes both missions there.

SPEAKER_00 34:41

So it's not only something that's functional, it's pretty, it's unique to Maryland, and it gives everyone a reason to come to Westminster to enjoy the wineries, to enjoy the breweries, to enjoy the ice cream, get out and take a walk afterwards, bring your dog, do the park, take the kids, do the stuff.

SPEAKER_01 34:58

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 34:59

Community supporting community. I like that.

SPEAKER_01 35:01

We appreciate the public. They're our best eyes and ears for any issues on the state numbered non-toll highways that we maintain. So, you and your audience, if you see something on the state numbered road, we'd appreciate it if you would let us know by going to our website at roads.maryland.gov. Toward the bottom, there's something called report a problem. And it could be anything from a traffic signal that is not phasing correctly to litter, to potholes, and anything you could think of is on there. So we really appreciate folks to let us know what's out there. Our crews really appreciate that as well.

SPEAKER_00 35:29

We'll be out there looking. I did not know that there was a Facebook page with all of the litter pictures. The two of you smile. I think I'm gonna have to become a fan follower of this. What the heck are people throwing out?

SPEAKER_02 35:41

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 35:41

Because I know I've lost some really expensive mugs that I've left on the top of my car, and I bet they showed up in a picture somewhere.

SPEAKER_01 35:47

Yeah, again, if you want to follow us, we're on Maryland State Highway Administration. We encourage you, your audience, to follow us because uh we we put a lot of interesting content on there, a lot of fun stuff too. We have throwback Thursdays, which always are fun. But also, if there's something serious going on or a project about to start, we always put that on our Facebook page. And we're also on X2, but we use that mostly for operational types of things like any kind of crashes or disabled vehicles or anything like that that's impacting the roadway. So that's at M V SHA, but we encourage for your audience uh Facebook we use very much a lot. That's Maryland State Highway Administration, and then our basic website is roads.maryland.gov.

SPEAKER_00 36:24

Andrew, if we went to find more out about the community loop in Westminster or know more about your projects in District 7, where do we find you?

SPEAKER_02 36:30

Similar spot, roads.maryland.gov. And you can go up and there we have a what's called a project portal, and that lists all the projects throughout the state. You can filter it by county, by district. So if you filter it for district seven, you'll get a list of all the active projects in Carroll Frederick and Howard County. And then this path, CL394, has its own page. There's a lot of good information and photos about what's going on now, when we expect to complete, but also the history of the project in terms of the Westminster Community Trail Loop and how it was prioritized and all the phases and how it all came together in partnership with the county to deliver it.

SPEAKER_00 37:02

I appreciate the work that you're both doing out there. I look forward to keeping safe on the roads, keeping the bees out of my car, enjoying the pollinators outside of my car, the deer outside of my pathway, and taking a good long walk with the pups. Thank you for being a guest. Oh, you're quite welcome. And thank you, our listeners, for being part of our conversation today, learning about all of the things that we see every day, but may not have made the connections to put how they get there. I hope the connections we've raised today stay with you as you engage your community through critters, companions, commerce, and agriculture. Join me again next week. We'll make some more connections. This program is a production of Raising Connections Media Company, hosted and produced by Rishanne Mayer, coordinated by Beverly McGilroy, and edited and mixed by Robin Temple.