SALISBURY – Concerns over a permanent road closure near the airport highlighted a town hall meeting this week.
On Tuesday, county leaders met with concerned residents on the east side of Wicomico County to share plans for a permanent road closure on a portion of Walston Switch Road in Salisbury.
District 5 Councilman Joe Holloway said he decided to host a town hall meeting at Mt. Hermon United Methodist Church this week after receiving several questions from community members about the proposed road closure.
“We’ve had a lot of questions about Walston Switch Road closing,” he said. “A lot of things were said that we really didn’t have the answers to. Instead of having a public hearing in council chambers, which is kind of inconvenient for a lot of people, I thought we’d have it here.”
Weston Young, Wicomico County’s assistant director of administration, told community members this week the closure would occur where Walston Switch intersects Airport Road. He noted that the intersection is located within a Runway Protection Zone designated by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
“It is typically what the FAA has designated as the area where most planes crash trying to land or take off,” he said. “One of the things the FAA told us in a recent airport master plan update is that they do not want any traffic stopped, so any cars that stop or yield, in the RPZ.”
Young said the county was in the process of updating its 10-year master plan for the airport when officials learned the FAA would not approve the planning document until stop-and-go traffic was addressed in the Runway Protection Zone. Without that master plan, he said, the county could lose out on federal funding for improvement and maintenance projects at the airport.
“The master plan is key for several things at the airport,” he said. “It’s critical for any future federal funding.”
Instead of rerouting Walston Switch, or its intersection with Airport Road, Young said the most cost-effective solution was to close Walston Switch Road before it enters the Runway Protection Zone.
“When it came down to dollars and cents, what we proposed to the FAA, and what they were generally okay with, would be a cul-de-sac …,” he said. “We are not cutting off anybody.”
Young said a proposed date of March 1 has been set for closing a portion of Walston Switch. However, the cul-de-sac would be installed after the county completes its airport water main extension project.
“At this point, we are not talking about tearing the road up,” he said.
Parsonsburg Volunteer Fire Company Deputy Chief Vance Webster told Young the department responded to emergencies in the area of Walston Switch Road. He asked that the closed road remain accessible to first responders.
“We would actually like to see the road stay down and have a gate …,” he said. “So our OptiCom [system] would open the gate and it wouldn’t slow down our route of travel and response times.”
Young noted that he would present the idea to the FAA.
“Seconds matter when it comes to a fire or a heart attack, so I hear you loud and clear,” he said. “We just need to coordinate with the FAA to see what is acceptable.”
Officials noted the partial closure could alleviate some traffic issues at the intersection of Walston Switch and Mt. Hermon Road. Community members, however, said those traffic issues would only migrate to the intersection of Mt. Hermon Road and Airport Road if Walston Switch was converted to a cul-de-sac.
They encouraged the executive’s office to review the effects of a potential increase in traffic at that intersection before closing a portion of Walston Switch.
“What I’m hearing is there needs to be a lot more work done before this road is closed,” Holloway said.
Young told the audience this week the FAA was close to approving the airport master plan. One of the final requirements would be to address the intersection of Walston Switch Road and Airport Road.
“They are ok with Airport Road, where traffic is moving through,” he said. “However, the fact that a vehicle could remotely be stopped in this zone, they said they were not going to allow it if we wanted to get approval for the master plan.”
