By Don Klein

If you ever had to measure a citizen-led group that worked successfully to solve a serious local problem, it would be hard to find one that was a better example than CRASH, the grass roots effort to improve safety on Routes 90 and 113.

CRASH, which stands for County Residents Action for Safer Highways, has been instrumental in accomplishing the goal of making some local roads less of a death trap than they were turning into. But its job remains unfinished.

Its history goes back a dozen years to August 1994 when Bob Hulburd was selected chairman of what was then the newest citizens' advisory group in the area. In time its efforts proved successful. An early CRASH project was the construction of a center guard rail for several miles from the end of the Route 90 Bridge from Ocean City to the intersection with Route 113.

"Before the work was done," Mr. Hulburd said thoughtfully, "more than 92 percent of fatalities on (Route) 90 were head-on collisions. Since 1997 when the (three year construction) project was completed there has been only one."

He wanted the road's center barrier to be extended all the way to Route 50, but accepts the portion that was done as a welcomed victory.

Mr. Hulburd, a Snow Hill area native and now the owner of a Berlin insurance company, was propelled into the road safety movement by the death of his cousin, Lee Figgs, in July 1994.

That was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. "I know of friends, policy holders, family members who have died in accidents on Route 113," he says. He decided then and there to do what he could to "reduce the margin of error" on local roads and eventually he helped found CRASH.

He discovered that two lane roads were the most dangerous. "Twenty-five percent of the roads in the U.S. are two lanes, 75 percent are four lanes," he noted, "but 75 percent of the accidents occur on two lane roads and 25 percent on the larger roads."

The first move was to get the attention of public officials. That took place during the October session that year in Snow Hill during the appearance of state transportation officials who annually toured counties to discuss transportation subjects.

"We packed the room," Mr. Hulburd recalls, it was an election year and CRASH wanted them to know "we were not going away." It was an election year and resulted in the new Gov. Parris Glendening putting the program into the pipeline and committing $3.9 million to get it started.

Mr. Hulburd remembers about 800 people packing the auditorium at Stephen Decatur High School when a public hearing on the road project was held. "Only one person out of the entire group, objected," he said. There was also a letter-writing campaign, billboards and volunteers initiated a telephone-calling effort.

"CRASH is a lobbying group on the grass roots level," he said. The statistics were on the side of CRASH. Surveys proved that Route 113 had three times as many serious accidents in Maryland then comparable other roads in the state.

"We were told 'no' a lot. They gave us all kinds of excuses why it couldn't be done, wetlands protection and lack of money," he said. But CRASH and its allies wanted to get the job done and in 1998 Mr. Hulburd testified before Congress to help get $26 million in highway funds.

"It was the catalyst to kick the project off," he claimed.

Starting in 1999, the first phase of construction on Route 113 began. "It took six years to the point where we are now...the state decided to do the north end first because of concerns of more traffic at the time and land values," Mr. Hulburd contended. "The longer you wait the more it costs." It is always easier to buy farmland than developed properties, he said.

Early successes may have diminished CRASH's active role somewhat but the group always shows up at Comprehensive Transportation Plan sessions in Worcester County where they keep themselves posted and talk to elected officials. When they set their goals, they do not like taking no for an answer.

Eventually Mr. Hulburd earned the moniker "Mr. 113." He said, "I look upon that as positive because I know what it takes to get the job done. We are a long way from being finished even though it has been a 12 year journey there are still 6-8 years to go." He added, "20 years altogether."

In the end the improved construction on the north end of Route 113 has saved lives.

Still to be done is the need to finish dualizing the road between Snow Hill and Berlin. The project is divided into four phases, each four miles long. The first section is a bypass around Snow Hill due to be completed next spring.

The remaining three sections are not yet to be funded for construction, although engineering and right of away work has been completed. CRASH is hopeful the funding issue will become clearer at the Comprehensive Transportation Plan (CTP) meeting to be held October 10 in the Worcester County Commissioners meeting room in Snow Hill. But there are no guarantees.

"We hope there will be no gap when they finish the current phase," Mr. Hulburd urged, "so we can seamlessly move on until the job is done." Then he added, "If you wait and do not act (it can) go on six years, which then may become eight years, which becomes 10 years, an so on."

Early this year Mr. Hulburd and several others, led by Ocean Pines activists Joe Green and Rod Murray, got together to initiate similar grass roots influence on improving conditions along Route 589 from Ocean Pines to Route 50. Called STAR 589, the group hopes to get road officials to decide how to improve the cluttered artery in this growing population area.

"We need to get people around the table and start planning for the future," he suggested, "we need a master plan for the road, given the high frequency of accidents, it's always better to be proactive than reactive."