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Barriers/Public Opinion
August 29th, 2007
First, my standard
disclaimer for the record: I am not affiliated with TxDOT, the RMA, or any
road-building agency, nor am I affiliated with any contractor or supplier
involved with road construction, design, engineering, or the like, nor am I affiliated with any Chamber of Commerce
or other civic organization. In short, I am solely representing myself and my
words below are my own opinion based on decades of interest,
observation, research, and formal education in roads, traffic, and
transportation. I am presently a systems
administrator for a university and hold a BA in urban and regional
planning.
A few years ago, there were a
number of serious head-on collisions on area freeways that had no center
median barrier. After a rash of these along 1604, TxDOT installed
temporary concrete Jersey barriers in the median of 1604 and announced
that they would be installing tension-cable barriers in the medians of
other area highways. As is typical, the second-guessing began
almost immediately. Skeptics bellowed that the "flimsy" barriers
wouldn't even stop a Yugo, let alone an 18-wheeler. But TxDOT's
engineers defended the barriers and insisted that they would indeed
work. And guess what? The proof has been in the pudding, as
they say. In the two years that cable barriers have been in place
here, they have stopped every single vehicle that has hit them,
including an 18-wheeler on I-35 in Von Ormy. A recent before-and-after
study showed that since cable barriers were installed around the state, the
number of fatalities on those roads where the barriers were installed dropped
from more than 50 fatalities in the year before installation to just one fatality
in the year afterward. The barriers work
and work well, just like TxDOT's engineers said they would. In
fact, recent studies show that they're more forgiving than metal
guardrails and concrete Jersey barriers because they absorb more energy
of the impact than those traditional barriers.
So what's my point here?
It's this-- so many people are armchair quarterbacks when it comes to
road projects. But even when something seems obvious to folks
(like the "flimsy" barriers), it usually turns-out that TxDOT was right
from the beginning. But do these people ever get an "I told you
so"? Nope. Does the media ever do follow-up stories to show
that the people who opposed something were just plain wrong? Nope.
So it just keeps happening over and over, and it's usually the same
people. Sometimes someone just needs to stand-up and tell the
naysayers that enough is enough and remind them how they've been wrong
over the years.
By the way, you can read more
about the success of cable barriers nationally here:
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/crt/lifecycle/cable.cfm
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