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Wed Apr 02, 2008 at 11:52 PM CDT
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| Reposted from MR.com.
Yesterday I wrote about my daily drive down Highway 71, known by some as "the highway of death" or "blood alley." Today, on my way home from work, I saw three separate news vans (KVUE, KEYE and KXAN, respectively) parked along Highway 71 and wondered if perhaps they had started reading my blog to come up with their news stories.
As it turned out, today Texas Sen. Kirk Watson (D-Austin) announced the plans for a new transportation safety fund to create improvements on Highway 71, including widening it to five lanes, adding shoulders as well as a middle turn lane. In the meantime, temporary barriers will be placed in the center of the road on the two-mile stretch from the Bee Creek Rd. light to the Haystack Cove intersection. |
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| From the KVUE news story:
The changes announced Wednesday include building temporary concrete barriers between oncoming lanes of traffic between Bee Creek Road and Haystack Cove and narrowing existing traffic lanes will from 12 to 11 feet wide to make room for the barriers.
"It will put a barrier in the road so on perhaps the most dangerous part of Highway 71, you will no longer have people really able to cross over the center line, resulting in head on collisions," Watson said.
And more:
"If this many people had died in a hurricane or a floor or tornado, we would call it a natural disaster," Watson said. "But when it comes to a road, we seem to just wait."
At least 11 people have died in a 2 mile stretch of the winding, hilly road in the last 18 months.
The AAS has a more comprehensive write-up on the future of Highway 71, especially with regards to how much everything is going to cost and where the money will from (hey, you were wondering where your toll money was going to!).
To me, the $850K that the temporary barriers reportedly will cost seems like a small price to pay if they save just one life on the two-mile Blood Alley.
Now, if they could just get the environmentalists' approval and get the barriers put up in a timely fashion. The rest of the Highway 71 improvements will take about two years (which in TxDOT time equals about six and a half -- just think "dog years"). |
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