A long awaited new road is expected to open on Tuesday. The State Highway Administration says Monocacy Boulevard between South and Market Streets will be ready to receive traffic at 12:00 noon.

The roadway was scheduled to open last week, but the wet weather and some issues connected to the railroad crossing along that stretch of Monocacy Boulevard needed to be resolved. "With a project and an interchange project of these magnitudes, you want to make sure everything is perfect. When you're dealing with a railroad crossing, that means you're also dealing with the Federal Railroad Administration," says SHA spokesman Charlie Gischlar.

He says CSX, which owns the tracks running alongside parts of East South Street, needed to put Department of Transportation numbers on this crossing into its computers so that  engineers know when to sound their locomotive's horns as they approach, warning motorists of a train. He also says that number helps with maintaining the crossing. "That way, if there's ever any maintenance issues down the road, they can go down and identify it by that number."

The line is also used by the MARC commuter train bringing passengers in and out of Frederick. 

The Monocacy Boulevard Extension is part of the $44-million Interstate 70 and South Street expansion project, which is expected to be completed by the summer of 2013, says Gischlar. Right now, crews are working on replacing the I-70 bridge over East South Street.