| From the August 21
Keynoter:
Stretch plan is a
boondoggle
EDITOR:
I am surprised and
disappointed that, despite clear facts to the contrary, the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers has decided to reward the Florida Department of
Transportation for nearly 20 years of extorting the public to get a
boondoggle project instead of requiring DOT to install safety
enhancements that have proven more effective, less costly, less
environmentally damaging and faster to implement on the 18-Mile Stretch.
As a result, the state will waste $180 million
taxpayer dollars on a project that, by DOT's own figures, will not
improve evacuation clearance time by one second; and that will include a
wide shoulder DOT has said is dangerous because it encourages passing on
the right - behavior that the Department of Highway Safety and Motor
Vehicles says is the most important factor in traffic fatalities.
John Hammerstrom
Key Largo
From the August 24 Key West Citizen:
Improve
Upper Keys road safety through education
My husband and
I evacuated [ahead of Hurricane Charley] early Thursday morning. I
suggested taking Card Sound Road; he chose to stay on U.S. 1. We saw the
helicopter circle in and heard on US 1 Radio (broken signal from Big
Pine Key) that the road was closed due to a truck accident.
I read in The
Key West Citizen [Aug. 13] a semitrailer rear-ended a car that had
slowed due to heavy rain.
"Such
accidents could rekindle a long-running debate over the safety of the
Stretch."
"[Sheriff]
Roth said he supports adding an additional northbound land to the
18-[Mile] Stretch as one way to avoid a traffic shutdown during a
hurricane evacuation."
"If we
couldn't push [wrecked vehicles] off the road, we would have to shut off
the evacuation" (if both the Stretch and Card Sound Road had accidents).
"Traffic
could be diverted to the shoulder in the event of an accident, he said."
What does
adding a lane to the Stretch have to do with a truck driver not slowing
down for weather conditions and paying attention?! If the jackknifed
truck was across two lanes, why would anyone be sure the wreckage would
not cover three lanes?
I heard the
scene took six hours to be cleared. Why aren't photos taken after the
injured are taken to the hospital? Could the wrecked vehicles [have been
pulled] out of the way more quickly? What part of the current sequence
of procedures could be changed to open at least one lane of travel more
quickly?
On the drive
out, we saw many sheriff's cars in parking areas along U.S. 1. I was
thinking they were watching for reckless speeders passing unsafely,
something we did not see. We did see a driver on the divided four-lane
section in the Upper Keys aggressively weave through traffic. Does this
type of road almost invite this style of driving? Seems to me we have
had way too many rear-end accidents lately. Is driver "education" the
only way to bring down the number of these accidents? How could this
education be accomplished?
Kathy Wheeler
Big Pine Key |
