Project Description
MD 404 Dualization
Submitted by the Mid-Atlantic Region
Construction Cost | $101,759,062.88 | |
Project Location | Talbot, Queen Anne’s, and Caroline Counties | |
Project Owner | Maryland DOT – State Highway Administration | |
Project Designer | Wallace Montgomery/Johnson, Mirmiran & Thompson/Rummel, Klepper & Kahl | |
Contractor | 404 Corridor Safety Constructors (JV) | |
Completion Date | November 2017 |

Project Description
MD 404 is a 55-mph principal arterial roadway connecting US 50 to the Delmarva Region on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, serving commuters, commercial trucking, local farmers, and tourists. About 20,000 vehicles—roughly 10% trucks—use it daily. During summertime peak travel, volumes jump to nearly 23,000 vehicles, with projected 2035 ADT of 26,000.
The existing, two-lane MD 404 operated at substandard levels of service during summertime peak hours, and corridor-wide collision rates were nearly twice the statewide average. From 2005 to 2014, 402 crashes and 12 fatalities occurred.
Maryland Governor Larry Hogan challenged the MDOT SHA and the A/E/C community to make MD 404 safer and to improve its capacity—as quickly as possible. Original projections targeted a mid-2019 completion. The governor directed the opening of a four-lane roadway by Thanksgiving 2017, half the original three-year schedule.
The 9.2-mile project widened the corridor, providing a continuous, dualized four-lane divided highway. Additional improvements included tie-ins with existing dualized roadways; reconfigured intersections; a bridge over Norwich Creek; roadway culverts; rehabilitated pavement; drainage collection/conveyance and stormwater management (SWM) systems; lighting, signing, and pavement markings; intelligent transportation systems (ITS); and landscape plantings.
MDOT SHA issued notice to proceed in June 2016 under a lump sum/fixed firm price contract with the 404 Safety Corridor Safety Constructors (CSC), a Tri Venture contracting team of Wagman Heavy Civil, David A. Bramble, and Allan Myers MD.
Project Features
- 246 Final design submissions
- 3 Design Teams
- Design Quality Control Plan (DQCP) developed
- 13 J-Turn
- 2 Maryland-T Intersections
- 400,000 CY of Cut/325,000 CY of Fill
- 76,600 LF of drainage ditches
- 25 cross culverts
- 84,350 LF of environmental site design stormwater facilities
- Maximum 20-acres allowed at any one time
- Corridor-wide transportation management plan
- Value Engineering – $16 million in savings
- 375,000 injury-free labor hours