Better Highways at Lower Cost

This past May, June, and July, 2024, along Highway 231 in Wetumpka, our “illustrious” Alabama Highway Department has been hard at work from the Wal-Mart north to the old Montgomery Highway with construction cones all over the place. Somehow, the department had decided that dozens of raised “islands” in the highway’s center would help make traffic safer and more expedient.

Do these contraptions really have any value? Do they enhance safety? Do they help the traffic flow? And how much extra taxes do they cost the people?

I have driven down this highway regularly for many years in its “unimproved” state—already a four lane divided highway with a marked paved median to allow for left turns wherever and whenever they are needed. It has been perfectly satisfactory for many years.

Once the “islands” are completed, left turns will be blocked in many places. Motorists will be forced to slow down to a crawl to make “U” turns around them and then backtrack to reach many business establishments, clogging traffic. When it gets heavy, nightmarish jams will likely be frequent. Also, fewer safe places will be available to pull over in case of an accident.

AND to top it off, MORE ACCIDENTS will certainly occur whenever a car or truck hits one of these monstrocities at a greater than walking speed. Many will be multi-car accidents. An 80,000 pound semi could jacknife and end up killing people and blocking the entire highway for hours.

Like all asphalt highways, 231 must undergo resurfacing about every eight to ten years. While it is straight, flat, and unobstructed, this maintenennce is a simple task with minimal delays and at a nonimal cost. Through traffic can easily shift from lane to lane as the paving progresses. But once the “islands” are in place, the traffic must detour around them, and the pavers must consume considerable extra time and space, blocking traffic to negotiate and pave the spaces between them. This adds to the time and expense to perform the job and also adds to lane closure times by reducing the number of usable lanes.

PLEASE, Mr. Highway Director, tell us HOW you are making our highways safer with these abominations. Once these obstructions are completed, and the self-evident dire consequences begin to slap us in our faces, more of our highway funds must later be consumed to undo this death trap. Sometimes, as in this case, the best improvement is to just leave things alone.

Of coure we do need to maintain our roads and bridges and keep them in good repair, but we need to focus on useful improvements, not traffic impediments.

How could we improve this highway to a top standard? To be honest, at the beginning, it didn’t need much work. Just keep the original lanes as they are, resurface the pavement whenever needed, and then apply the ONE improvement we do need on most of our highways—REFLECTIVE PAINT onto the lane lines. That’s it.

THAT is the BEST solution to make ALL of our roadways safer—MUCH SAFER?

And it will cost MUCH LESS than the stupid barricades.

Just apply the reflective paint onto all of our highways—the kind we sometimes see on better roads elsewhere. Neighboring Georgia is already pulling well ahead of us with this life-saving technology. Driving down many Georgia highways at night is a real pleasure with lane lines clearly visible hundreds of feet ahead, with no accidently ending up in the wrong lane or a truck cutting you off because the lane lines have faded to almost nothing, like we see in much of Alabama.

Right now, many of our roads are less than adequately painted, even with ordinary paint. Some lines are badly faded—almost invisible at night. Imagine driving with no headlights, unable to see what lane you are in. Drop the useless projects and paint our roads to adequate standards.

Good reflective paint can light up highways like Christmelyas trees and enhance safety tremendously. In critical places, reflectors can also be added. There is no question that it prevents multitudes of accidents. WHY isn’t Alabama making reflective paint a TOP PRIORITY? Why does our highway department keep whining about safety, concocting largely useless actions (like the no-brainer I described above), and ignoring the ONE most logical solution that can provide maximum safety at a minimal cost. Reflective paint is the obvious remedy far ahead of all others to provide that safety. It provides more “bang” for our highway bucks than any other maintenence procedure. There is no excuse not to apply it onto EVERY ONE of our roadways.

Another needed highway improvement is adequate signage. Some of our roads, especially rural roads, go many miles without any useful clues to their names, numbers, or locations. Some even lack adequate signs at intersections. Signs should include both numbers and names, and they should be everywhere.

In some places, improperly timed traffic signals can be a serious nuisance. The most frequent problem is inadequate green time on the primary highways, backing up traffic to give green lights and usually unnecessesary protected left turns on minor roads with almost no traffic—often changing to red and blocking the highway when there is no traffic at all on them. Lights on highways should remain green unless cross traffic is actually detected.

Another solution is to program signals to go on flash during off-peak traffic hours. This is already done in a few places, but it needs to be done a great deal more.

And NEVER install a signal that can turn red on a highway at the bottom of a long, steep hill. That can be deadly.

There are some signals that should just be scrapped. One particularaly obnoxious one in Wetumpka is at the intersection of South Main Street and River Oaks Drive. That light will turn red when there is NO traffic on River Oaks Drive, and it will STAY red on Main Street for minutes and minutes, piling up traffic. It is utterly unjustified and a public nuisance.

Another huge improvement that would cost almost nothing would be to allow parking along the sides of the interstate highway ramps. Many of these ramps are of ample width to safely provide space for up to three big trucks. They would be a great emergency asset for our truckers when they need to rest after long drives and all of the rest areas and truck stops are filled up to or even beyond their capacities.

A couple of improvements for Montgomery would include:

1. Remove the road block on Dalraida Road and connect it to Highway 231. This would provide a much needed direct corridor from 231 to the southern end of Perry Hill Road.

2. We have a chronic shortage of PUBLIC parking close to the state house. Yes, there is a huge parking lot already next to it—about 100 spaces—maybe more. BUT they are all reserved. They are empty nearly all of the time. We common peopl cannot use them. I twice had to push an elderly handicapped friend in a wheelchair a half mile down Mt Meigs Road and on to the state house and back again for important meetings for the lack of a parking space.

Go easy on traffic stops. Too much “enforcement” can obstruct traffic, distract people, and be more dangerous than too little, or even none at all. Traffic laws are essentially self-enforcing. For their own protection, people naturally strive to avoid recklessness and avoid accidents on their own—without “Big Brother” sticking his nose into their business.

Now let’s look a few years into the future. How well is Highway 231 in Wetumpka getting along? How well is the traffic moving? How many more accidents, injuries and deaths have taken place since 2024? Who is going to be held responsible?

Finally, the time will arrive to back up and punt. Remove the death traps and restore the highway to its earlier, safer condition?

THE VIEWS OF SUBMITTED EDITORIALS MAY NOT BE THE EXPRESS VIEWS OF THE ALABAMA GAZETTE.