Commuters who regularly travel Forest Drive in Annapolis can breathe a sigh of relief because Anne Arundel County Council members rescued a widening project from the budget chopping block.
The council voted Tuesday night to keep about $1.8 million in the county?s capital budget to add a third lane in both directions to the heavily trafficked thoroughfare in and out of Annapolis.
But the Forest Drive project represented only one of almost $31.7 million in high-priority road and bridge projects included in County Executive Janet Owens? 2007 budget.
Council members agreed to fund the Forest Drive project on the condition that the developers of two major housing projects pay for the reconstruction of an eastbound right turn lane at the intersection of Forest Drive and Bywater Road that would be lost when the third lane was built.
The council also demanded that the city of Annapolis uphold its end of the bargain to pay for an estimated 40 percent of the widening needed in the westbound lanes.
Aside from a handful of major road widening and reconstruction projects, Anne Arundel County Public Works officials are still faced with a 360-mile road maintenance backlog, an estimated $124 million in road repaving and repair work concentrated mostly in the northern part of the county.
In 2007, the public works department requested $22 million for road maintenance, but Greg Africa, deputy director of public works in the bureau of highways, said additional funding in a supplemental budget would be welcome.
“That $22 million will hold the line where we?re at right now,” Africa said. “Any funding for the backlog would have to come from supplemental appropriations.”
In the 2006 budget, Owens earmarked $37 million for basic road maintenance and repair, more than double the previous year?s total and the highest level of funding in 10 years.
