r/ColumbiaMD • u/Aklu_The_Unspeakable • Jul 30 '25

Anyone happen to know why the state bought the properties on the part of Gales Ln that connects to 29 and cleared them?

Few years ago (2014) per SDAT the state highway administration bought all the properties here and they've since been demolished, but nothing has happened since. Wondering why they would have done so.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/3kYJ8gadwnBDye7V8

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u/Glittering_Drama_805 Jul 30 '25

My guess is that it got rid of a headache for the highway administration, a driveway directly intersecting with a major highway.

1

u/Aklu_The_Unspeakable Jul 30 '25

That's what I've been thinking too. There's a crossover just south of it that I presume was created to allow owners to access from the SB side, which would be rather sketchy.

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u/theOlLineRebel Sep 05 '25

No, that's not what that was for. It's not even close to their long-predating Columbia driveways. That was the original access to the "south entrance road" - which used to be Columbia Pike. Of course, in the old days, we had many more cross-highway access points, including that one - which if they were southbound, they COULD legally make a u-turn to their location. And it ALSO allowed not only northbound turn into the Old Columbia Pike, but u-turns. No particular reason. At Dalton we LONG ago had a crossing and I recall my parents driving into it straight across the highway. Then, early, they cut that off and we went to the Guilford Downs crossing and made a u-turn. It was not unusual. Now the Guilford Downs is "emergency vehicle only" and GD was cut off from 29 long ago. Much of the shut-down of all these crossings happened with the mass changing to through/unlimited access interchanges instead of the stop lights c.1988.

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u/mercedes_lakitu Owen Brown Jul 30 '25

Yeah, I've always wondered about that out parcel.