BR area leads state in accidents, fatalities
 

Compared with other regions of the state, the Baton Rouge area has the most traffic deaths, serious traffic injuries and wrecks that could be caused, at least partially, by the poor quality of the roads.

Baton Rouge has the most spots that have two times, five times, even 10 or more times as many wrecks as similarly designed state roads with similar amounts of traffic.

Experts cite several possible reasons for the high numbers.

The capital city area has more state roads. And its police forces have more up-to-date reporting equipment.

But mostly, they say, metro Baton Rouge's growth has far outpaced its infrastructure.

The state Department of Transportation and Development keeps track of places on state roads that the agency suspects are designed so badly or maintained so poorly that they might cause wrecks or make crashes worse.

DOTD's Abnormal Locations report, as the list is called, shows the most-dangerous places to drive in a state known for bad roads.

When a specific place shows up in the Abnormal Locations database, the state sends out engineers to find the cause for the high number of wrecks and to recommend a solution.

For instance, from 1993 through 2003, the intersection at Florida Boulevard and Sherwood Forest Boulevard was the scene of 610 crashes, 5 deaths and 300 serious injuries. About 33,000 vehicles a day pass through the crossing of the two four-lane divided roads and two-way service roads.

The crash rate was 3.8 times greater than at other, similar intersections.

The city-parish and the state determined that many of those wrecks were caused by drivers trying to edge across the intersection from the service roads. Motorists properly turning off Florida were surprised by vehicles legally crossing from the service roads.

In January, barricades were erected to block drivers from crossing the intersection on the service roads.

"Just looking at the number of accidents since last year, we're down dramatically," said Ingolf Partenheimer, manager of the city-parish's Advanced Traffic Management Center.

State officials like to keep the Abnormal Locations report secret for fear that lawyers for people injured in crashes might find a way to overcome legal obstacles and use the information to prove the state knew of a hazard but had not repaired it.

The Advocate obtained the data by making a request under the state's open-records law.

Old roads, new development

Most of the Baton Rouge spots identified on the state's Abnormal Locations report have a lot of traffic, said state Rep. William Daniel, D-Baton Rouge, who is helping Mayor Kip Holden organize the city-parish traffic system.

Daniel took issue with the state and other experts calling the locations dangerous. He argued that many of the wrecks are fender-benders, causing relatively few injuries and deaths.

Daniel said the Abnormal Locations database does show that Baton Rouge has grown much faster than its infrastructure.

"I see a lot of the same roads keep popping up: Old Hammond Highway. I see Perkins Road over and over again," Daniel said as he reviewed the Abnormal Locations list. "I remember the death at the crossover of the I-10/I-12 split -- tragic."

Daniel said roads that show up most often have been overwhelmed by new developments. Traffic volume has outpaced resources.

Highway engineering experts tend to agree with Daniel's assessment.

Baton Rouge has a lot of roads that were designed decades ago and have not been upgraded for the higher traffic now using them.

Subdivisions and strip malls increase the number of vehicles entering roads that often have not been upgraded with turn lanes, wide shoulders and traffic controls.

Major arteries such as Perkins Road, Old Hammond Highway and O'Neal Lane were designed as rural farm roads. In many places these roads have no shoulder between the pavement and steep drainage ditches.

How defects cause crashes

Duaine Evans is an engineer who studied at LSU and Yale University. He worked for DOTD and was the city traffic engineer in Baton Rouge during the 1960s. He now testifies in highway defect lawsuits for both the state and plaintiffs.

"We know drivers will leave the travel lane, either intentionally to avoid traffic, or inadvertently, just drifting out of the normal lane of travel for whatever reason," Evans said.

"What happens is their wheels catch the drop-off and they are pulled into the ditch. Or they over-steer to recover and lose control when they get back on pavement."

In other locations, an increase of traffic has led to collisions when drivers misjudge and pull out in front of oncoming vehicles.

Installing a stoplight may actually increase the number of crashes, he said.

"Sometimes you have to make choices, and sometimes those choices are to exchange dangerous collisions with slower, minor accidents," Evans said.

"It's not important to me whether the crash resulted in fatalities or an injury. I'm looking at the causes. Any time you have a collision, any time you have a ton of metal hurtling at each other, even at slow speeds, then anything could happen."

Olin K. Dart Jr. of Baton Rouge, a highway engineer who testifies as an expert in many road hazard lawsuits, said Baton Rouge voters have not approved a major bond issue for roads since 1964. The result has been reliance on a handful of roads without the funds to upgrade them.

"We don't have a lot of alternate routes to get around town, and that's why the traffic and the crashes are so concentrated," Dart said.

Bridge from the '50s

One of the more-publicized places identified in the state's Abnormal Locations report is the Interstate 10 bridge over the Mississippi River.

The interstate bridge had been designed in the 1950s to connect with the cross-town Interstate 110 freeway.

The design "was certainly acceptable at the time," Dart said. "Consultants OK'd it and the state and the feds approved (it) at the time. They didn't anticipate some of the problems in the future."

Part of the nation's major California-to-Florida freeway, the bridge's "T" interchange averaged 147,000 vehicles a day in 2003 – nearly triple the number from just a decade ago, according to the Abnormal Locations report. The city-parish's Partenheimer estimates the daily traffic flow now is nearly 200,000.

Had voters approved increased taxes 10, 20 or 30 years ago, highway engineers could have upgraded the interchange as newer engineering and technology became available, Dart said. Instead, engineers have to make do with the money available: adding a merging lane, a retaining wall and warning signs.

"They're trying to fix it temporarily," Dart said. "But it'll take a major redesign to correct the problem permanently. And that will be expensive. And I don't see where we're going to get the money."

DOTD Secretary Johnny Bradberry said although many complain about the roads, that doesn't mean they are unsafe.

"Our roads are not perfect. It does require you to wear your seatbelt, stay within the guidelines of the law," he said.

"And I think if you do that, don't drink while you drive, do all those things, then you make the probability on those portions of the roadways that are less safe than others that you can survive an accident or not have an accident," Bradberry said.

Road hazards that engineers look for when an area has an unusual number of wrecks: