Mayor Strange Meets with Dept. of Transportation Over 65/85 Interchange
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The City of Montgomery made a formal request to have the Department of Transportation study the 65/85 interchange to see what can be done to make it safer.
Montgomery Mayor Todd Strange says 69 accidents have happened in the last six months at theinterchange. He says the city finally has DOT’s attention, following yet another deadly accident.
Thomas James lives in Montgomery and he’s making it his mission to get something done about the 65/85 interchange. It’s an area where wrecks continue to happen, especially involving 18 wheelers. After calling city and state leaders, James spoke on the matter at Tuesday’s city council meeting.
“I went there particularly to address the mayor on that issue.”
James says he drives the interchange weekly but paid close attention to it the day after an 18-wheeler toppled off of it in early May, killing the driver.
“I drove it twice that Saturday morning after the accident,” he said. “I said this needs to be addressed. I said, well what is the city doing about it?”
We took the question to the mayor.
“Our only option is to go to DOT, who then would take it to the federal highway administration to see if funds can’t be made available for a study and then subsequent construction,” Strange said.
What both James and the mayor want are more caution signals. Right now, there are a few but if a driver is speeding or distracted, they could miss them. Caution signals may be the city’s best bet because we’re told to completely redesign the road would cost up to 70 million dollars.
” What we’d love to do is put electronic speed control devices there but under the state law, you cannot put electronic speed devices, it has to be a motor person,” Strange said.
“Well if you’ve got city cops out there writing tickets on this stuff, you have something to say about the regulation of what’s out there for the motorists,” said James. “You should have some input.”
The mayor says the meeting went well, and that the two parties have agreed on some short term and long term goals.
