Thanks to everyone who attended the Route 29/Rivers Edge Road intersection open house Thursday June 19th!  Over 300 people attended including our State Delegate Guy J. Guzzone.  At the open house, residents reviewed drawings of the new intersection design concepts and  identified their first and second preferences out of the 5 conceptual plans (click here to view the plans).

Voting will end JULY 2nd so results can be aggregated and forwarded to SHA.  If your household has not voted their preferences at the open house or on this website, please review the plans and then click here to vote.  The online poll allows you to identify your 1^st and 2^nd  preferences and submit  any questions you have for SHA.  Only one vote per household please and please don’t expect an immediate response to questions – the neighborhood intersection working group will collect all of the questions and comments and forward them to SHA.  When SHA responds, their responses will be posted on this website and forwarded to the community email list.

If you are not yet on the community email list, please complete the contact form here and be sure to include your email and street address.  Please note that the email list is only for residents of Holiday Hills, Riverside Estates, River Glen, and Riverside Outlook (the communities served by Rivers Edge Road).

Many thanks to the Church of God, our port-in-a (literal)-storm, who made their conference room available to us and thanks and credit to Stephanie Harman and Don Witten who conceived, organized, and led the event.

SHA will be making changes to the intersection of Rt. 29 and Rivers Edge Road due to the number of serious accidents there.  Previously, SHA had suggested removing the traffic signal and eliminating Rivers Edge Rd. access to/from Rt. 29 northbound; this was vigorously opposed by our community including a petition signed by 472 households.  As a result of our petition and the support of our elected officials including Guy Guzzone, Shane Pendergrass, and Frank Turner, SHA has developed a new set of preliminary design concepts that preserves our community access to and from Rt. 29 northbound.

The design concepts:

• Remove the traffic signal at the intersection of Route 29 and Rivers Edge Rd.
• Extend the on/off ramps to/from Rt. 29 southbound to allow more time to merge (since the traffic won’t be stopped at a signal)
• Create a bridge over (or possibly tunnel under) Rt. 29 to provide access to/from Rt. 29 northbound; the location of the bridge/tunnel and whether it connects Rivers Edge Rd. to Old Columbia Rd. on the east side of Rt. 29 varies.

SHA established a small Focus Group to review these preliminary design concepts and  has now provided electronic copies for our community to review.  Please note that these are preliminary concepts; SHA has not yet reviewed them for environmental and engineering feasibility.

• HD_US29_Alternative 1A
• HD_US29_Alternative 1B
• HD_US29_Alternative 2
• HD_US29_Alternative 3
• HD_US29_Alternative 4

The notes from the  SHA Focus Group meeting and SHA responses to various questions are here:

• US-29-Phase-2-community-mtg-minutes-4-10-14
• Point by Point Response from SHA

A community open house was held June 19th where community members viewed and discussed the preliminary design concepts.  Residents’ preferred design concepts were recorded and will be provided as early feedback to SHA.  If you were not able to attend the open house, please send your preferences in writing to Don Witten (see newsletter for Don’s address) or complete the poll on this website: here.

This Fall, SHA will have a public meeting where they will present mature designs to the entire community.  For more details on the upcoming community and SHA meetings please see the June 2014 Newsletter.

SHA has gone to significant lengths to include our community in this planning and we want to encourage them to continue, so please do not deluge SHA with calls, mail, or email. There is a working group of community members that includes Focus Group members and can answer many questions and will gather the early community feedback to present to SHA in an organized manner.

From the SHA Summer 2011 Newsletter:

Rivers Edge Road
After considering  the  community comments and  feedback,  SHA will  re-evaluate the  underpass option,  which  was  the  preferred alternative  in  the  1987 US  29  corridor planning  study  to updat; geometric and  cosreiements.  Due  to  lack of funding,  Phase 2 of this project which  includes the  improvements at  Rivers  Edge  Road  has  been  placed  on  hold .  SHA will  proceed  with  the  design  of Phase  1 only and  will  fully explore all options for Rivers  Edge  Road  access when  future funds  are  identified .

For more information on the SHA project, see this link.