South Rolling Road Has New Speed Camera, Old Problems

The speed camera that was on South Rolling Road has been replaced but questions remain on how to best handle safety on the two-lane road that has turned into a major thoroughfare.

Improving pedestrian safety and controlling traffic volume and speed on the road have been discussed for years at , with numerous options put on the table.

After the speed camera at the newest camera location in Catonsville was burned last week, Patch readers commented that speed bumps would be a better option, and others questioned outright if speed cameras were an effective deterrent for speeding.

Just last summer, a committee of community members for ways to improve traffic and pedestrian safety along the road. The committee had met through winter and spring to discuss solutions with State Highway Administration engineers and staff.

In 2004, a public workshop was held by SHA officials to discuss improvements to the road.

Here's a review of options that are available for South Rolling Road, according to SHA officials:

Speed humps: SHA does not install speed humps on state roads, mostly because of the volume of traffic and the fact that most state roads lead to major highways.

Baltimore County's policy on neighborhood traffic management agrees with the state. According to the Neighborhood Traffic Management Program document, roads will not be considered for speed bumps in Baltimore County unless they are under local jurisdiction.

Other factors that will disqualify a road for speed bumps are if the road is a dead-end street, less than 1,000 feet long or a majority of the property is not residential.

Crosswalks: Two new crosswalks and more signage alerting motorists to pedestrians were added last summer after the community task force finished its work on improving the road.

Sidewalks: SHA has received funding to add more sidewalks along South Rolling Road and is in the design phase of the project. At this point there isn't information on where sidewalks will be added.

Islands:  Based on the feedback during the task force that met last year, adding islands on South Rolling Road was not something the community favored.

Widening the road: In 2004, SHA presented to the community a plan to turn the road into a two-lane curbed roadway that would have a center turn lane as well as new sidewalks.

The construction would have only occurred in areas along the road where the state has the right of way. It also would not have increased the capacity along the road.

But the plan was not looked on favorably by area residents. Officials received more than 300 comment cards in the fall of 2004 indicating that citizens did not want significant construction along the road.

Speed cameras have been added to South Rolling Road by Baltimore County since , after the Baltimore County Council to expand speed camera enforcement.

Councilman Tom Quirk he is confident that a majority of residents in the area support cameras and that speed is the No. 1 issue his office receives complaints about.

In the fall of 2010, SHA officials held a in which they handed out comment cards to find out what residents needed. Out of those who responded, 82 percent said they wanted to improve pedestrian safety.

In addition, 64 percent wanted to curb aggressive driving behavior, 62 percent wanted to reduce speeds, 56 percent wanted automated speed enforcement, 55 percent wanted sidewalks on the east side of South Rolling Road and 54 percent wanted more signs and markings.

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