MDOT officials hold meeting for proposed Route 50 project in Easton

EASTON, Md. -It was a full house Monday evening as community leaders, residents, and business owners alike sat in on the second public meeting for the proposed US 50 project in Easton.

“It’s always a great, great meeting when you can have so many key stakeholders in one room discussing a project like this,” said Maryland Department of Transportation spokesperson Bob Rager.

Officials with MDOT and SHA say this proposed project has been years in the making after a recent traffic study showed a number of accidents occurring along US 50 over the years.

“The project is to improve pedestrian and vehicle safety and it’s been talked about as kind of being one of the other it’s actually both of them,” said Rager.

To address these issues officials are proposing a number of solutions to increase safety for pedestrians and drivers. Including adding sidewalks along US 50 between Route 328 and 331. While also proposing to close the US 50 median crossovers at Arcadia and Lomax streets, which many say would  negatively impact their businesses.

“It’s going to make it very difficult for east bound traffic to turn left to come in to McDonald’s and to Hopkins Sales, and to my business,” said Norman Schmidt.

Officials say these closures are necessary and part of a larger plan to improve safety for both pedestrians and drivers. But some residents say this move will cause a major headache.

“Sometimes I have to sit there and wait 10 minutes to get on route 50, just to get on route 50, because you guys took out the merge area on 50 and now you’re going to send more cars around nobody’s going to be able to get out of 328,” said one resident at the meeting.

But, the project is still in its early stages and transportation officials say it will be sometime before they have a final plan in place. And until then they welcome any and all feedback from the public.

Officials say the project is only 30 % complete but they’re hoping to have a final plan in place by the summer. They add that they want to continue to get input from the community to hopefully create a project they all can agree on.