Please come at 7 p.m. tonight to the Banneker Room in the George Howard Building, 3430 Courthouse Drive, in Ellicott City to help present a petition — with more than 6,000 signatures — regarding public safety concerns at Route 29 and Interstate 70 will be hand-delivered to the State Highway Administration at a public SHA meeting in Ellicott City. The petition drive was spearheaded by Valerie Noel of Ellicott City, whose son Andrew died at the intersection in July.
As is often the case, what needed to happen has happened. Someone needed to die. That person was Andrew Noel. We in the Mount Hebron community are profoundly upset. And it is because, in one respect, we are to blame for Andrew Noel’s death. We all knew that a fatal accident was going occur at this intersection, and we knew it back when the hazardous straightaway ramp opened in 2002. We just did not know to whom. But now we know.
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Andrew Noel was sent here, by God, for a special purpose. His purpose, which will last forever, is to remind each of us that we have a responsibility to each other. And we have the right to expect our representatives in county and state government to listen to what we have to say. We have failed to exercise that right, and our governments have failed, until just recently, to listen carefully to what many of us have been saying.
For government to be effective, it must be responsive. In that respect, our governments have failed us. But I do not blame anyone in government for what has happened. Pointing fingers will not change what has happened. The only question is what happens going forward. I know that I will do anything I can to bring about the necessary change to the 29/70 intersection. If you believe as I do, then you must speak up, you must speak out, and you must do so now.
Andrew Noel cannot speak, so we must speak for him. And in so doing we will fulfill the special purpose that God intended for him.
Read more about current safety measures by clicking here.
