HANOVER, Md. – Ulyssess Currie, a state senator under federal investigation for his ties to the Shoppers grocery store chain, asked a state official to improve the intersection of Route 1 and Cherry Hill Road near the College Park Shoppers, The (Baltimore) Sun reported.

College Park isn’t in the district of Currie, a Prince George’s County democrat, but The Sun reported he wrote in a letter to State Highway Administrator Neil J. Pedersen that the “critical intersection” generates “numerous complaints to my office.”

The letter was one of several documents, including e-mails and other letters to and from state transportation officials, that show Currie was interested in projects near Shoppers Food Warehouses Stores in Prince George’s, Anne Arundel and Baltimore counties, as well as one at Baltimore’s Mondawmin Mall and the one in College Park.

The records illustrate Currie’s persistence in keeping tabs on the status of different projects, such as traffic light installments. They also show transportation officials were interested in satisfying Currie, who had influence over the state’s budget as chairman of the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee.

“Senator Currie asks me every time he sees me whether we have resolved the Reisterstown Road Shoppers Food Warehouse issue,” Pedersen wrote to Kenneth McDonald Jr., chief of the department’s Engineering Access Permit division, in February 2004. “How close are we to resolving it?”

In a March 2005 e-mail, Pedersen mentions the senator’s influence as the head of the committee that helped steer spending in the state’s $31.5 billion budget.

“It is very critical that we do all that we can to expedite this as much as possible,” Pedersen wrote. “This is very important to the Chairman of the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee. We have our budget … and several critical pieces of legislation before his committee right now.”

Federal investigators have not said what they are investigating. They have subpoenaed five state agencies, including the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development, Maryland Transit Administration, the Motor Vehicle Administration, the State Highway Administration and the Department of Legislative Services.

Currie, 70, did not disclose his employment with Shoppers to the State Ethics Commission as required. On May 29, the FBI searched Currie’s District Heights home, the same day they searched at Shoppers headquarters in Lanham.

More than 1,800 pages of documents were made public, SHA said in a statement.

“SHA’s Administrator was interviewed by federal investigators last month,” the agency said. “Both he and the entire agency are cooperating fully with the investigation.”

The documents were released Monday after reporters requested them through Maryland’s Public Information Act. Many of the documents have been subpoenaed by the U.S. attorney’s office in Baltimore.

Currie declined to comment Monday, referring questions to his attorney, Dale Kelberman, who also declined to comment.