WORCESTER COUNTY, Md. -- Ocean City leaders got some promising news at a Tuesday, April 29 work session. The project to widen Route 90 is back on the state of Maryland's agenda.
Environmental analysis and preliminary design work are scheduled to begin in July 2026. While Ocean City officials are encouraged to see the project once again moving in the right direction, it still looks like it'll be several years before the major highway is expanded.
"It's going to be a journey," said Amy Thompson, Executive Director of the Ocean City Chamber of Commerce. "We've lived with what we have, I just hope that we're able to continue to limp along."
Thompson told WBOC that the two-lane highway presents a number of challenges in its current state.
"We know the natural traffic patterns, it's going to be a little crazy on a Friday or Saturday as people do the week turnover," said Thompson. "It gets blocked, it gets jammed, and that's obviously detrimental from a business standpoint, also a public safety standpoint."
Ocean City and Worcester County leaders have continued to advocate for the road to be widened for all of those reasons.
"We need safe roads to come in on, we need a way to bring visitors in, and we've got to do that in an efficient manner," said Susan Jones, Executive Director of the Hotel Motel Restaurant Association.
Plus, those efforts look far less bleak now than last September, when the project was put on hold due to financial constraints.
However, funding for the project was partially restored just a few months later inJanuary. Jones attributes that to the consistent effort at the local and state levels.
"Luckily, we have leaders who are continuing to meet and talk about what is important to our town," said Jones.
The State Highway Administration told us on Wednesday that the study scheduled for July 2026 is the next step in the project's development. At this time, there is no updated timeline for the project's completion.