A long-awaited plan to build highway sound barriers along Interstate 195 between Interstate 95 and Washington Boulevard will begin next month, according to the State Highway Administration.

Four separate sections of barriers will be built along 7,100 feet of the highway in the next 18 to 20 months with $4.8 million in state and county funds, said SHA spokesman David Buck.

"This is a pretty good amount of wall," he said.

The four sections will be built along the stretches of the highway that are closest to residential areas, with three sections on the west side of I-195 East and one section on the east side of I-195 West, Buck said.

The barriers will decrease the amount of highway noise that reaches 128 houses and townhouses in Relay, Richardson Mews and St. Denis, Buck said.

The construction is not expected to impact traffic on the highway, Buck said.

Some local residents said it is about time.

"I am so glad that it's happening finally," said Beverly Stevens, a resident of Hazel Avenue whose house sits right along the highway.

"I can't wait for it to go up so it will cut down on some of the noise, and also the dirt," Stevens said.

Her Magnolia Avenue neighbor, Paul Rauser, had similar thoughts.

"It will be such a relief," Rauser said. "It's long overdue, that's for sure."

Rauser said he and his wife, Fay, who have lived in their house since 1974, have been asking for barriers since 1990. That was the year the two original sections of I-195 -- the stretch between South Rolling Road and Washington Boulevard and the stretch between Interstate 295 and the Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport -- were connected and travelers coming from I-95 began taking I-195 to the airport.

"It wasn't so bad when they built the highway and it drained off on Route 1 (Washington Boulevard)," Rauser said.

"But when they continued with its initial purpose to go to the airport, and they completed that, the sound and the dirt and just everything that's generated from a highway, it's basically all over your house."

While the plan to build the barriers doesn't date back quite as long as Rauser's requests for them, it does date back to at least 2002, said Del. James Malone, who represents the area and said he has supported the project for years.

"We started this under the Ruppersberger Administration, that's how long it goes back," Malone said, referring to U.S. Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger's time as Baltimore County Executive from 1994 to 2002.

"We hoped to have had this done a long while ago."

In 2002, the state allocated money for the project but the county decided not to, Malone said.

In more recent years, the county came up with funds but the state funding had disappeared because "if you don't use it, you lose it," Malone said.

As time went on, the "price tag" for the project went up, which meant both state and county had to reassess their allocations for the project, Malone said.

Today, everyone is finally on board, with the state paying 80 percent of the cost and the county paying the remaining 20 percent, Malone said.

"All the i's have been dotted and the t's have been crossed," he said.

"I'm very excited for all the people in Relay and the Richardson Mews area, all the people who have been waiting for this for a very long time."

Del. Steven DeBoy, who also represents the area and lives in nearby Wynnewood, said there has been a small amount of opposition to the project but residents are "overwhelmingly" supportive of it.

With the growth of the airport since the highway was constructed, DeBoy said, residents have had to deal with more and more traffic.

According to a spokesman with the Maryland Aviation Administration, BWI-Marshall had 10.2 million commercial passengers in 1990 and 20.5 million last year.

Buck said on average, highways see a three to four percent increase in traffic per year.

With traffic on I-195 at the level it is, the barriers "will be of great value to the community," DeBoy said.

Nova Traurig, of Richardson Mews, agreed.

"Put them up!" Traurig said of the barriers on a recent morning, as she stood in the front door of her townhouse and pointed through a small stand of trees at the trucks and cars whirring past in the gaps between the leaves.

"You can hear it," Traurig said of the steady hum of traffic, accented at times by the rumble of heavy trucks and the high pitch of sirens.

Drivers "hit whatever gear it is they hit up there," Traurig said, pointing northwest toward I-95, "and my bedroom is right here.

"Listen to that at four o'clock in the morning!" she said.

Buck said the barriers, which will range from 13 to 18 feet in height, won't start going up until sometime next year.

All of next month will be taken up by Verizon relocating its fiber optic lines that are in the path of the new barriers, Buck said.

Buck said there is also "a lot of clearing that has to occur" before the actual barriers are constructed, and the construction itself will take a long time as well.

Residents said after years of waiting, they are just happy the project is starting.

"I'll be out there with a big sign thanking them when they start," Stevens said.

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