PIKESVILLE, Md. — Susan Williams likens it to going down the ocean: if you're driving on a highway, and you approach a community, you slow down. Or, at least, you should.
"If you look at Reisterstown Road as a whole," Williams told WMAR-2 News, "we are unique, because we have shops that front right against the street. So you need to have a walkable, ADA accessible sidewalk that is a pleasant place to walk from store to store, to be able to cross the street in a safe, modern crosswalk."
Neighbors and business owners in Pikesville invited the State Highway Administration to discuss safety concerns on the road, which is a state highway, attending meetings this month at the Pikesville Volunteer Fire Company.
Their focus is on Reisterstown Road between Old Court Road and Slade Avenue, which features restaurants, the Baltimore County Public Library and senior center, and the ongoing Pikesville Armory redevelopment.
"Our watch words are, for Pikesville: clean, safe, walkable," Tom Fekete, president of Pikesville Improvement Corporation, a 501(c)3 formed about a year ago, told WMAR. "I think you need to have all of those - walkable and safe involved [in] this highway, because it is not very conducive to walking and crossing."
State Highway Administration spokesman Charlie Gischlar said the organization is evaluating the area right now; he noted the corridor has more accidents than the statewide average.
"We are continuing to study ways to calm that traffic down in that corridor because it is, it is rather busy and we do see that all the way down toward the city line," Gischlar told WMAR-2 News.
Neighbors say a safe environment to navigate directly correlates with better business.
"I think everyone is united on fixing this street, and you don't often get that in neighborhoods with the business people and the community being on the same page, which I think emphasizes the need, and, and we want to have our turn at getting in a capital budget," Williams said.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
