Crash dummies
The Wood
River Valley deserves better than it’s getting from the Idaho
Transportation Department.
The ITD is
treating drivers like crash dummies.
When this
summer’s bridge replacement and highway widening began on State Highway
75, East Fork residents suddenly found themselves unable to determine
whether they could safely turn onto the highway from East Fork road
because their view of oncoming traffic was blocked by temporary concrete
barriers.
After a
couple of weeks and some hair-raising close calls, some distressed
residents decided to quit suffering in silence and to demand that the ITD
correct the problem.
That
residents had to demand a solution for an obvious danger was bad enough.
Then came the solution.
A dirt-road
detour was constructed from East Fork Road south to a temporary new
intersection where drivers could see oncoming traffic. But there was a
hitch.
After
another spate of close calls, the ITD finally realized that vehicles with
a wide turning radius, most trucks and SUVs, couldn’t enter the highway
going north without entering the opposite lane of traffic. Holy seatbelt,
Batman!
Last we
knew, the ITD employed a lot of engineers, folks who supposedly make their
livings calculating things like view distances and turning radii.
You wouldn’t
know it by this job. If there aren’t red faces all around in the ITD,
there should be.