Harford County’s top crash location is the site of a new single-lane roundabout constructed entirely of recycled milk jugs.
The intersection of Bel Air South Parkway and Blue Spruce Drive saw the most crashes in the county, and roundabouts are shown to reduce the severity of motor vehicle crashes. Additionally, the use of recycled milk jugs instead of concrete skimmed about $1.5 million off the cost of the project.
Each square foot of roundabout reuses more than 100 one-gallon milk jugs, and the structures reused the equivalent of about 370,000 milk jugs in total. The recycled plastic formed the modular units to create the roundabout. It is the first of its kind in Harford County and one of the first in Maryland.
The installation required extensive road closures and signage adjacent to the Festival at Bel Air shopping center. It was expected to take a week to complete but finished two days ahead of schedule, with all area roads reopened Wednesday afternoon. The project also required large-scale coordination with the State Highway Administration and area businesses to minimize disruption to traffic and business operations.
“This new modular roundabout is an important traffic safety improvement at the county’s most dangerous intersection,” Harford County Executive Bob Cassilly said in a statement. “I would like to thank everyone for their patience during the road closures and give special thanks to the DPW Highway Engineering team and our dedicated DPW crews for working so quickly to complete this project ahead of the busy holiday season.”
Hopefully motorists will be able to make their whey around this intersection more safely in the future.
