Dangerous roadway warrants full attention
Recent wrecks on the
only highway in and out of the Keys have led to the death of a number of
innocent travelers from head-on collisions. These accidents leave us
sorrowful and shaken.
What is to be done?
Obviously, four lanes along the length of U.S. 1 would prevent some
head-on collisions. But "build it and they will come," and for years the
idea of four-laning throughout has been opposed, the assumption being
that it would encourage an ecologically insupportable amount of
daytrippers to the Keys.
Last week, undeterred
by rain, 35 protesters stood outside the Plantation Key court house to
bring attention to the latest plans for the 18-Mile Stretch, most
notorious of U.S. 1's black spots for head-ons.
The protesters claim
that plans by the Florida Department of Transportation and the Army
Corps of Engineers to elevate the road over Lake Surprise and install a
new, 65-foot high bridge over Jewfish Creek — with an entry-exit clover
leaf — are simply too much, especially for a total price tag of $180
million.
What the protesters
want is the core plan as recommended in the Miller report on the
Stretch, which is to keep it two-laned but with two additions: A
northbound emergency lane plus a "Jersey barrier" between the two lanes.
This type of solid-concrete barrier has succeeded in eliminating
fatalities along a once-bloody stretch of Route 9 in Cape Cod.
With the outcome for
the Stretch still unfolding, the question remains regarding the rest of
U.S. 1. What could and should be done to make travel safer?
Congestion is an
obvious culprit. If the responsibility for safe driving is the driver's
responsibility, how much greater is a driver's burden when the roadway
has filled up beyond its anticipated capacity?
In a guest editorial
in The Citizen last week, Hedley Burrell, formerly a senior media
advisor to the U.S. government, tolled the bell on the automobile
experiment as a whole. Switching to cleaner, cheaper fuels is not the
answer to an ever-rising population of drivers, he wrote. There is a
reason car makers advertise their products these days by showing them
accelerating on empty roads. Because it is seductive. It is also
deceptive.
So our love affair
with the automobile may be wearing painfully and dangerously thin. But
we still have to live with a worsening situation for the foreseeable
future. So what is to be done?
It is evident that
much of the frustration on U.S. 1, and the hazardous driving that
results, has to do with slow drivers as surely as speeding drivers. On a
rural roadway like U.S. 1, going with the flow is a life-saving
lubricant to safety. We would like to see a law requiring slow drivers
with a number of cars backed up behind them to pull over at the first
opportunity and let them pass.
As for speeding, it
has been calculated that the time difference between driving from Miami
to Key West at the speed limit and driving as fast as possible is 12
minutes.
Pay attention. Use
your mirror. Obey the law.
And let us know your
suggestions for a safer U.S. 1.
— The Citizen |
