The traffic pattern has changed in an effort to improve safety at a River Road intersection where a car crash claimed the lives of three family members from Bethesda.
With the alterations by the Maryland State Highway Administration, drivers now only have the option of turning right from Braeburn Parkway onto River Road in Bethesda. Left turns are prohibited.
SHA in recent months has been working to reconfigure the intersection and install flashing yellow signs in the area near the back entrance to Walt Whitman High School. Community members for years have called on the state agency to address their concerns about the road crossing and have complained about a lack of progress since a recent deadly wreck.
In February 2016, a Walt Whitman senior and his parents died in a collision at the site. His sister, also a Whitman student, was injured but survived the crash.
Area residents and members of the school community pulled together in the wake of the wreck to call for safety upgrades, asking SHA to create a new back entrance to the Whitman parking lot at Pyle Road and to install traffic signals at the intersection and crosswalk.
SHA instead promised to set up the flashing signs and reroute traffic, but the work hadn’t been completed by mid-March. U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, County Council President Roger Berliner and a group of state lawmakers sent a letter last month to SHA pressing the agency for a status update.
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Intersection diagram via SHA
