July 4, 2009
Woman killed on new U.S. 35
Advertiser
HURRICANE, W.Va. -- A Putnam County woman was killed in a car accident at the intersection of U.S. 35 and Hurricane Creek Road Saturday afternoon.
Wilma Leslie, 80, was taken by helicopter to St. Mary's Medical Center in Huntington, where she died.
The two-vehicle accident happened around 11 a.m. Saturday. WSAZ TV is reporting a truck was involved in the accident.
The new U.S. 35 opened last month, and connects Interstate 64 to Buffalo.
Putnam County residents have expressed worry over several county roads, including Hurricane Creek Road, that intersect the new U.S. 35 with only a stop sign to control traffic coming onto the highway.
The Putnam County Sheriff's Department is investigating.
Advertisement - Your ad here
Post a comment
In 2007, traffic on the just-bypassed part of US 35 was in 12,500-15,500 range based on the WVDOH traffic counts. That's comparable to US 119 (Corridor G) between Southridge and Logan and US 19 (Corridor L) between I-79 and Fayetteville. Parts of Corridor L south of Fayetteville carry almost 10,000 more cars per day on a non-freeway Corridor-standard alignment.
If the state could have afforded it, a freeway for new US 35 would have been great. There's only so much money to go around, however, so most of the time you build what is technically acceptable - a road that will perform at an adequate level of service in the forecast year, generally 20 years in the future.
Ohio built MOST of their portion of 35 as a fully controlled-access freeway. Ours is an expressway, with few interchanges and mostly at-grade intersections.
Are the traffic counts through Putnam County REALLY less than the counts in Galia County, OH (a freeway)? REALLY???
Yes, traffic lights are band-aids that would slow down the traffic passing through, but the moment a traffic light goes up, the purpose of the road is compromised. Flashers aren't a bad idea, and may be the only cheap solution that doesn't stop traffic.
But here's the reality: they needed to fully-control the access, but they couldn't afford interchanges at key access points. It's not because you can't overbuild a road in WV, and not because of traffic counts. They just couldn't afford to build the RIGHT road.