More than 10% of Baltimore’s 2024 auto fatalities occurred on one road

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When a grandmother and grandson died in a crash this February in Northeast Baltimore, community leaders joined forces with their new delegate to get traffic-calming measures in place.

Now, Belair Road’s speeding problem has become personal for District 45 Delegate Jacqueline “Jackie” Addison. One of the three pedestrians who died in crashes on the busy thoroughfare this month was Addison’s cousin.

“We have a problem on Belair Road,” said Addison, a Democrat elected in 2022. The longtime Belair-Edison resident noted she tries to avoid driving on the busy stretch of U.S. Route 1.

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Addison’s 58-year-old cousin, Vernon Louis Miller, died after being struck on the 3200 block of Belair Road, according to Baltimore Police. Two days later, a 43-year-old man died in a crash on the 6600 block of Belair Road.

With less highway traffic and lower speed limits, Baltimore City generally has fewer roadway fatalities than its suburban neighbors — Baltimore County has had 69 fatal crashes this year, while the city has had 46.

Baltimore Police have investigated five road fatalities on Belair Road this year — an eighth of the fatalities they’ve handled in 2024. Six more fatal crashes occurred this year on Maryland Transportation Authority property within city limits.

Motorists treat Belair “like it’s the Indy 500,” said Rita Crews, president of the Belair-Edison Community Association.

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After the fatal crash in February, city officials agreed to place additional automated speed enforcement cameras on Belair Road, one of Northeast Baltimore’s main thoroughfares. A few days later, they came down, according to Crews and Addison. The city’s Department of Transportation did not return multiple requests for comment on Wednesday.

The speeding is “a major concern for me,” said Crews, who said crossing Belair Road is “just not safe.”

One fatal crash is too many — “it shouldn’t be every month,” she said. “Something really needs to be done.”

Further northeast, the city plans to test out a new traffic-calming approach on Glenmore Road, which connects Belair Road to similarly busy Harford Road. The city’s Department of Transportation said at a recent meeting that it would remove Glenmore’s speed humps and add in chicanes — a series of alternating curves in the roadway designed to slow drivers. Each curve will be denoted by a flex post and markings, with the goal of “forcing drivers to navigate through these curves rather than driving in a straight line,” traffic engineer Qiana Gabriel said at the recorded meeting.

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District 3 Councilman Ryan Dorsey, an advocate of traffic calming, said during the meeting that he was glad to see the city trying “something new” to combat speeding motorists. He said he was “very hopeful” the chicanes would be successful. Dorsey did not return a request for comment.

Glenmore is just a few blocks south of the Nov. 22 crash that killed the 43-year-old. In the same block this August, a 73-year-old pedestrian suffered multiple injuries and died after being struck by a vehicle.

Traffic calming is also part of a Complete Streets initiative on a section of Belair Road from Mareco Avenue to Kentucky Avenue. Curb bump-outs and lane reductions on the northbound side are expected to slow traffic in the third-of-a mile stretch.

Have a news tip? Contact Dan Belson at dbelson@baltsun.com.

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