In an early design of downtown Columbia, there was a street linking Town Center to the east Columbia neighborhood of Oakland Mills by way of a bridge across Lake Kittamaqundi.

Columbia's original developer never built the connection, but now, 40 years later, the town's current developer hopes to make the bridge a reality.

The proposed bridge is one aspect of a traffic plan intended to complement developer General Growth Properties Inc.'s larger 30-year master plan to redevelop downtown Columbia by adding 5,500 residences, 4.79 million square feet of office space, 1.05 million square feet of retail and a 550-room hotel.

The master plan also seeks to better connect the Columbia mall, Symphony Woods and Lake Kittamaqundi with wide pedestrian promenades.

On May 7, General Growth officials released a proposed street grid intended to ease the flow of traffic in a revamped Town Center. A key aspect of the traffic plan is a "main street" bridge stretching from the Columbia mall across Lake Kittamaqundi and Route 29 into Oakland Mills, said Martin Wells, a traffic consultant for General Growth.

Robert Tennenbaum, an architect who worked on Columbia's original plan with Columbia founder James Rouse, called the bridge "a project whose time has come."

He said developers under Rouse likely abandoned it as too costly, but he thinks the link would provide a beautiful entrance into Town Center from east Columbia.

However, Bridget Mugane, president of the Howard County Citizens Association, said she thinks the bridge "may not be feasible."

She said she fears the State Highway Administration would not approve the road across the state-owned Route 29, and that the bridge across Lake Kittamaqundi would destroy the natural atmosphere at the lake.

Other aspects of General Growth's traffic plan include paving a network of roads through Symphony Woods and better connecting to the woods existing roads like Hickory Ridge Road and the "ring road" that surrounds the mall.

To finance the new and extended roadways, General Growth officials plan to work with the county to set up a tax district on their property, said Gregory Hamm, General Growth's regional vice president and general manager of Columbia.

As General Growth's master plan took shape over the past few years, many residents have expressed concerns about traffic congestion the additional development could generate.

In the spring of 2006, a Florida-based traffic consultant hired by the county found that the existing roads in downtown Columbia would not be able to handle the 5,500 residential units, 750,000 square feet of retail and 5.2 million square feet of office space the plan proposed at that time.

Wells last week said the latest road plan will sufficiently accommodate the anticipated spike in traffic caused by General Growth's development plans.

"The proposed street network with its many links and many connections will provide sufficient capacity to adequately accommodate the forecasted traffic volumes," he said.

Wells said General Growth officials will ask the county to allow a greater volume of traffic on Town Center roads by altering the county's Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance. The law, known as APFO, prohibits development in areas in which schools and roads are overcrowded.

General Growth plans to ask the county to change the allowed amount of traffic per lane from 1,450 vehicles an hour to 1,600 in downtown Columbia, Wells said.

County officials have agreed to the concept of changing APFO, but they are not sure to what extent they would change the threshold of vehicles per hour, said Kimberley Flowers, deputy director and ombudsman for public affairs in the Department of Planning and Zoning.

E-mail Andrei Blakely at ablakely@patuxent.com.

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