OCEAN CITY, Md. - Ocean City leaders are asking the State Highway Administration to consider new bike and pedestrian safety improvements along parts of Coastal Highway and Philadelphia Avenue.
The Ocean City Council voted last week to support recommendations from the town’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee and send them to SHA for consideration. The recommendations are tied to the state’s Pedestrian Safety Action Plan for the corridor between 15th and 67th streets.
The committee’s recommendations include extending median fencing farther south, studying traffic movements around Route 90, improving bike safety where lanes disappear between 60th and 63rd streets, improving bike lane signage near 17th Street, addressing the southbound configuration near 23rd Street and lowering the speed limit from 40 mph to 35 mph between 62nd and 67th streets.
Ryan Whittington, a spokesman for the Ocean City Fire Department, said Coastal Highway becomes more complicated during the summer as cars, buses, pedestrians, bicyclists, scooters and e-bikes all share the same corridor.
“Every day we see hundreds of people using bikes, bicycles. We see pedestrians walking Coastal Highway,” Whittington said. “But with that also does come some concerns.”
Whittington said the fire department responded to multiple incidents involving pedestrians and bike riders over the weekend, including one pedestrian crash and one e-bike crash that required patients to be flown to a trauma center.
He said safety improvements can help prevent crashes before first responders are called. Whittington pointed to the existing median fence as one example, saying pedestrian crashes have dropped in areas where the fencing is already in place.
“In the area where the median fence is installed, we have seen a decrease in our responses,” Whittington said. “That median fence has really, really been a huge asset.”
County Commissioner Eric Fiori said pedestrian and bicycle safety is also important beyond Ocean City’s limits, especially for workers and J-1 students who need safe ways to travel into town.
“We need safe ways for our J-1 students to make it into Ocean City,” Fiori said. “That’s connectivity out in the county as well.”
SHA is expected to make a formal presentation to Ocean City leaders this fall. At that point, city officials are expected to have another opportunity to ask questions and discuss which recommendations could move forward.
