Trigg County magistrates heard about the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet’s plan to address safety concerns at the U.S. 68/80 and Kentucky 139 intersection during their meeting Monday night.
KYTC District 1 Chief Engineer Kyle Poat told magistrates and community members in attendance that an R-Cut is what they plan to install at the intersection.
An R-Cut would require through traffic on side roads, like South Road, to make a right turn, then use a median turn lane to make a controlled U-turn before turning right to travel through the intersection. Engineers say traffic studies of existing R-Cut installations show crash reductions of up to 54 percent.
During his presentation, Poat used the heavily traveled Kentucky 45/Kentucky 408 intersection in Graves County, as an example saying they installed a traffic light and signs that warned drivers when the light was about to turn red, but that did not help the intersection.
In addition to the R-Cut, Poat says they will add additional lighting to the intersections.
Poat adds he understands this may make drivers uncomfortable.
Poat notes while some additional design work is required, he anticipates negotiating the addition of the R-Cut to the ongoing construction project along U.S. 68 between Cadiz and Canton. The estimated costs of the project could be up to $400,000, which Poat says the transportation cabinet already has, meaning it could be completed quicker. The cost to install a traffic signal would be an estimated $50,000. Work is expected to begin in either March or April and take up to three months.
During the project development process, the design team reviewed 15 years of crash data at the intersection and found that there were 32 police-reported crashes that included 4 fatalities, 11 injuries,
and 19 crashes with property damage.
KYTC reports approximately 6,200 vehicles travel through the U.S. 68/Kentucky 139 intersection on an average day.
