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Sunday, September 30, 2007

Widening Roads Not the Route to Safety?

Sycamore Avenue between 26th and 41st Streets in Sioux Falls evidently has some problems with reckless drivers. Friday night's deadly crash follows a fatal April 2006 crash just a few blocks away that killed a motorcyclist going 80 down this city street. This morning's Argus offers an interesting observation from a witness to that motorcycle accident, Rob Hibbison:

Since the street was widened and the limit increased to 35 mph, speeding has only worsened, Hibbison said Saturday.

"Since they widened it, they've made it a two-lane race track instead of a single lane," Hibbison said. "It's just gotten ridiculously worse."

[Jill Callison, "Worst I've Ever Seen, Says Officer of Fatal Crash," Sioux Falls Argus Leader, 2007.09.30]


This is just one anecdote, not statistics, but it raises an interesting question for those of us interested in widening Highway 34 from Lake Madison to I-29: if safety is our primary concern, is adding lanes the best way to go, or might it only encourage whatever dangerous driving habits might be happening now?

Update: KELO-TV focuses on the safety issues on Sycamore, noting that after the widening of that street, residents are now calling for more stop signs [Summer Evans, "Sycamore Known for Speeding," KELOLand.com, 2007.09.30].

1 comment:

  1. With the recent issues in Colman, I don't believe that it should be widened completely through to the interstate. If that section through Colman gets widened, and with no current law enforcement, we are going to be reading about these deadly accidents on this highway as well(especially since the highway goes right past a park/campground).

    I am pasting a link to a forum on the KELO website about Moody County Budget Cuts. A resident of Colman seems to have concerns already.

    http://forums.keloland.com/showthread.php?t=1473

    ReplyDelete

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