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Published Tuesday, July 07, 2009 in Local

Photo by Sarah Fay Campbell

A 20-foot grass median is all that separates north- and south-bound drivers on I-85 south of the Moreland exit. When the widening project is complete, there will be 12-foot emergency lanes on each side. But that is not enough, says Coweta Commissioner Randolph Collins, who wants to see cable barriers or a guardrail installed to prevent crossover accidents.

No barriers on I-85 south of Moreland

By Sarah Fay Campbell

The Times-Herald

While concrete barrier walls are what greet motorists traveling on Interstate 85 north of Bullsboro Drive in Coweta County, narrow grass medians are the norm from the Moreland exit to south of the Grantville exit.

Currently, just 20 feet of grass separates north-bound and south-bound drivers on I-85 in the southern Coweta stretch.

Georgia Department of Transportation officials say there are no plans to erect guardrails or cable barriers along that stretch of the interstate.

Once the I-85 widening project is complete in Coweta later this year, there will be 12-foot wide emergency lanes on either side of the median. That makes the total "recoverable zone" 44 feet wide, said Crystal Paulk-Buchanan, a DOT spokeswoman. With a zone that wide, there is no requirement for a guardrail or cable barrier.

Though there may be no requirement, the barriers are needed, in the opinion of Coweta County Commissioner Randolph Collins.

"The median is so flat and there is nothing there to catch a vehicle," said Collins, who is a Georgia State Patrol trooper, and former member of the GSP's Specialized Collision Reconstruction Team that investigates serious accidents.

There have been two fatal crossover accidents on I-85 just south of Moreland Exit 41, Collins said. The most recent accident, on June 22, claimed the life of Teresa Parham of Columbus. Parham had been traveling southbound in the left lane when she lost control of her car. According to the Georgia State Patrol, Parham was able to bring her car back into the travel lane, but then lost control again and ended up crossing the median. Her vehicle collided with a tractor-trailer truck and she was killed instantly.

While the I-85 construction is under way, the speed limit is 50 mph. "So what are we going to do when it gets to 70 mph?" Collins asked.

The Federal Highway Administration approved the installation of cable median barriers for the project, according to DOT District Engineer Thomas Howell. But there is no funding for the barriers.

"This is a safety concern... they don't have the money to pay for it. But let's find the money," Collins said.

Many interstate medians have a ditch running through the middle of them, and are banked steeply. South of Grantville, the median is so steep, Collins said, that he has gotten his patrol vehicle stuck trying to get across. But between Moreland and Grantville, "you're going straight across where it is flat."

It's a good thing that there will be left-hand emergency lanes, Collins said.

"But there is nothing there to catch a car.

"It is human instinct that, if there is a crash in front of you, or you're too close for some reason, you go left or right," Collins said. "If you are in the left lane, the only place you can go is to the left, and then you lose control."

"You're traveling 70 mph, and, all of a sudden, the car in front of you does something stupid," Collins said.

"You try to avoid it, you go left, and you're going into the median. And then you're head-on into somebody else."

Crossover crashes are some of the most violent. When two cars hit head-on at 70 mph, "how do you survive that?" Collins asked.

The DOT is currently concentrating on areas of the state where medians are less than 40 feet wide, Paulk-Buchanan said.

"There are quite a lot of these in the state," she said. "Unfortunately, the simple truth of the matter is those have to take priority over anything that is greater than 40 feet," she said. "Financially, we don't have the money to tackle all those."

"Ideally," Paulk-Buchanan said, median guardrails or barriers would be along every interstate in Georgia. "But we don't have the money."

It's a matter of dealing with the most-vital projects first. "The medians that are narrow, those are the ones that have to be prioritized," she said.

When asked if any federal stimulus money could be used to install the cable barriers, Paulk-Buchanan said she doubted the project would be eligible. Safety projects are typically separate from construction projects, she said.

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Not for lack but for greed!

7/10/2009