The purpose of this project is to:

• Improve safety by reducing the number and severity of potential crashes
• Maintain current and future capacity needs for the intersection

The left-turn lane lengths on US 45 are not long enough to provide adequate deceleration for turning vehicles. And, the turn lanes are configured in a way that opposing left-turn vehicles obstruct the view of oncoming traffic.

From 2010 to 2014, there were 11 crashes at the intersection:

• Four right-angle crashes
  • Three westbound-southbound crashes and one eastbound-southbound crash
  • Of the four crashes, two westbound vehicles ran a red light and one eastbound vehicle ran a red light. Westbound and eastbound traffic may have had difficulty seeing the traffic signals.
• Four rear-end crashes
  • Three of the crashes were vehicles slowing or stopped for a red light.
• One left-turn angle crash
• One sideswipe
• One run-off-the-road crash

Five of the 11 crashes at the intersection occurred on wet/snowy/icy pavement.