Ineffective I-43 Barriers

They were supposed to be the solution. They were supposed to prevent crossover accidents on a particularly deadly stretch of I-43.

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, July 2006:

Six people have now died in four freeway-crossover crashes along a stretch of I-43 in Ozaukee County since November, and people ranging from the county coroner to a woman who survived one of the wrecks are calling on the state to immediately install barriers on the median.

The sixth fatality occurred Monday when an 82-year-old Shorewood woman died after being injured in a crossover accident Saturday that also killed an 80-year-old Milwaukee woman.

All four fatal crashes have occurred along a six-mile stretch of I-43 between Mequon and Grafton.

"I'm just saying put a barrier up," said John Holicek, the Ozaukee County coroner. Holicek urged the state Department of Transportation to act quickly to install the median barrier.

"How many deaths do they need before they decide they are going to put something up there?" he said. "This one could have been prevented, too."

Drivers who have survived some of the fatal crashes share that sentiment.

"It's kind of obvious," Molly Lynn of Bolingbrook, Ill., said of installing median barriers along that stretch of I-43. Lynn was driving south on the freeway on Father's Day when a northbound SUV slid across the 60-foot-wide open median and struck her car and another southbound vehicle.

The driver of that SUV, a 42-year-old Coleman woman, died in the crash.

Transportation Department officials say they have been looking closely at the I-43 crashes and have made it their top priority but won't decide what to do until they get the results of a study expected by late next week.


"I think that given the new fatalities, it further strengthens the hands of legislators who feel that a barrier ought to be put in," said state Sen. Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend), adding that he wants barriers installed on I-43 between Mequon Road and Highway 33.

On Aug. 7, DOT Secretary Frank Busalacchi and Dewayne Johnson, director of the southeast DOT region, are scheduled to meet with four state legislators - Grothman, Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills), and Reps. Curt Gielow (R-Mequon) and Mark Gottlieb (R-Port Washington) - to discuss the situation.

"We're very distressed by the information we've heard about the accidents," Johnson said. "At this point, we need to see what those recommendations (in the study) are, and then we will go from there . . . and then decide what action plans we should take."

...The Federal Highway Administration has called cable barriers effective ways to reduce such crashes.

The cable barriers have been nearly 100% effective in preventing deadly crossover crashes in North Carolina and Oregon, according to reviews by those states. In South Carolina, officials installed three-strand cable barriers in areas with multiple median crossover crashes. Between August 2000 and July 2003, nearly 3,000 cars hit the cable barriers, but just 15 broke through the cables, according to the Federal Highway Administration.

Just 15 cars out of nearly 3,000 broke through the barriers. Those figures are impressive; but they're irrelevant if a loved one was traveling in one of those 15 cars.

Tragically, the accident on Friday that claimed the lives of two teens proved that the cable barriers in Ozaukee County aren't 100% effective either.

WISN reports:

The Ozaukee County Sheriff's Department and the Wisconsin State Patrol are teaming up to figure out how a car went under cable barriers recently installed to prevent cars from crossing the Interstate median into the path of oncoming traffic.

The barriers were championed by state Sen. Alberta Darling after a number of fatal crashes along the stretch of Interstate 43. Darling said the Department of Transportation chose the cable barriers over concrete because they they were designed to bounce cars back into their lanes.

"We were told they would solve the problem of people going across the divide and preventing accidents," Darling said. "This is a huge tragedy for everybody, and we need to figure out what happened and solve the problem."

TMJ4 reports:

The cable barrier from Mequon Road in Mequon to state Highway 32 was installed a year ago because of similar collisions.

Governor Jim Doyle had ordered the state to put in the cables at a cost of more than $525,000 after six people died in four crashes on that stretch of freeway between November 2005 and July 2006.

Sheriff Maury Straub says investigators will try to determine why the barrier gave out.

"It is our hope that through this joint probe we will be better able to determine the overall effectiveness, and identify any deficiencies, of such barriers," Straub said in the statement.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that the cables had been struck by vehicles at least 22 times in nine months and had stopped the vehicles.

Until Friday, the cables had been effective.

Is it possible to construct a safe barrier that's impossible to breach?

I don't know.

It's unbearably tragic that two precious lives, Kathryn Zoromski and Brandon Melichar, were lost.

My heart breaks for their families and friends. God be with them.

Prayers for the two teens, Katelynn Tolzman and Aaron Prom, who remain hospitalized in critical condition.