Community Corner

New Cable Guardrails Along U.S. 23 May Save Lives

More than 22 miles of highway in Livingston County will receive the cables, designed to prevent head-on crashes, MDOT says.

Through the snows of winter, a roadside memorial on U.S. 23 has endured as a testament to the hazards of the highway.

On both sides of U.S. 23 between the Silver Lake and Lee roads exits, photos of a smiling homecoming queen signed "Daddy misses you" commemorate the life of Felisa Barnes, who was killed in a car crash at age 19 on Oct. 20, 2009.

One year later, along the same stretch of road in Green Oak Township, a head-on collision killed five people and injured four more.

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The Michigan Department of Transportation hopes new cable guardrails along the median between the northbound and southbound lanes of U.S. 23 will stop similar tragedies in the future.

According to MDOT spokesperson Kari Arend, the cables will be installed along the expressway in Livingston County as part of a road construction and bridge project that will begin this spring and finish in fall 2012.

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They will span from M-14 at the south to just north of M-59, Arend said, including Brighton and Hartland. The cables will replace older guardrails that exist at "select locations" along that stretch of U.S. 23, Arend said, and will be the first guardrails at several sites — including the dangerous strech between Silver Lake and Lee roads — which currently have only wide grass medians.

"This was just one of the sites selected, primarily because of the accident rate along that corridor," Arend said.

According to MDOT, cross-median crashes are three times more deadly
than other freeway accidents. Cable guardrail is expected to reduce cross-median crashes by an estimated 90 percent, saving 13 lives and preventing 51 incapacitating injuries statewide each year.

The barriers, made from steel wire ropes mounted on posts, are designed to stop a vehicle from crossing into lanes of oncoming traffic. The cables also absorb impact and prevent bounce-back.

MDOT has launched a "Median Man" communications campaign to educate the public about the cables.

"It's a new design we've been putting in over the last seven years," Arend said. "We have a five-year program to put in about 300 miles of this new guardrail as a way to prevent median crossovers."


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