OCEAN CITY — With the first significant motorized special event of the season less than two weeks away, the State Highway Administration (SHA) is working with town officials on how best to implement, at least for the short term, the new special enforcement zone.
After a challenging motorized special event season in Ocean City last year, a task force was formed to being exploring ways to curtail some of the illicit and undesired activities associated with some of the events. One of the major initiatives to come out of that task force thus far is the creation of special enforcement zones along the resort roadways akin to highway work zones and school zones with lower speed limits, higher fines and stronger enforcement.
The General Assembly this year easily passed the two pieces of legislation filed by Senator Jim Mathias and Delegate Mary Beth Carozza and Gov. Larry Hogan signed the bill into law just last week. Now, with the spring Cruisin’ event just around the corner, the rubber is about to hit the road, so to speak, with the implementation of the special enforcement zones.
The bill was passed as emergency legislation, meaning it became effective once Hogan signed it this week. According to the language in the bill, SHAmust be a facilitator of sorts for the implementation of the special enforcement zones. During a briefing with the Mayor and Council this week, SHA District Engineer Jay Meredith said there were meetings planned with city officials and the police and public works departments on how best to utilize the special zones, at least for this first spring event.
“The coordination of the special events enforcement zone is a new program,” he said. “We have a meeting set up this week to go over those details. We know you have an event coming up, so we’re going to make sure that whatever we have to do to enact that program gets done.”
Meredith said the inaugural special enforcement zone implemented for the spring Cruisin’ weekend may not resemble the finished product and could be more of work in progress.
“It may not be exactly what it will look like in the future,” he said. “For this event, we’re prepared to do whatever we have to do to have your special event zone set up.
Mayor Rick Meehan thanked SHA for being out in front of the issue for the first event.
“I want to thank you for working with us and accelerating the implementation of the special event zone for the upcoming cruising weekend,” he said. “During that meeting, we’re going to figure out how we’re going to do that and what your role is and what our role is.”
Meehan said he hoped the special event zone would achieve the desired results.
“That’s going to formalize that and get that message out to the participants and the public,” he said. “This is going to be a real asset for us in controlling some of the traffic issues we’ve experienced over the last few years.”
