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Photo - April 22, 2000©
Marvin Bartel
One of the video camera locations for the Destination
Study on July 23, 1998, was south of the Super Walmart entrances on
Southeast US 33 at the Goshen city limits. If the widened road is constructed
by INDOT these shoppers will have a less safe way to come to Walmart. INDOT's
proposed road design would be a five lane road with curbing along the sides.
Curbing restricts them and places lives at risk in slow moving vehicles.
There is large Amish population east of Goshen. They frequently shop at
business locations in Goshen and often shop at the businesses along US
33 southeast of Goshen.
We almost never see horse drawn vehicles on the curbed
US 33 between Goshen and Elkhart. Once in a great while an Old Order Mennonite
from west of Goshen may risk this road with a buggy. There were no buggies
going either north or south at the north entrance to Goshen according to
the July 23, 1998 Destination
Study. Does the city and the state also want to endanger them on the
south part of Goshen? Those of us who have lived in Goshen a few years
can recall the tragic accident north of Goshen that took three lives because
the curbing didn't allow them to move off of the traffic lane.
| Here a buggy driver is able to leave Walmart on south
US 33 with some safety by sticking close to the grassy shoulder area of
the highway. If the proposed road with curbing is constructed, buggies
would have no escape when heavy and fast traffic endangers them. Photo
- April 22, 2000© Marvin Bartel |
| Below is a cross-section drawing of the type of roadway
being proposed. It is intended to support four lanes of auto and truck
traffic and a center turn lane. The cement curbs would NOT allow slow moving
vehicles from escaping off the sides. This is exactly the road design on
which the three teens were burned to death when they stopped in the right
traffic lane. The curbing prevented them from leaving the travel lanes.
They were rear-ended by a van and their Pinto exploded in flame. |
Design shown in Thoroughfare
Plan, City of Goshen, dated August 1996, from Woopert, Indianapolis
A safer road for horse drawn vehicles allows for them
to move off the fast lanes and onto the shoulder of the road if danger
threatens. An improved two lane highway with paved shoulders and turn lanes
at lights would be a far safer, more sensible, and cost effective design.
Dangerous strip mall entrances to the highway where there is no stoplight
could be eliminated if a rear connector road (or parking lot connector
road) would be added in the strip mall areas. Busy five lane curbed roads
do not seem safe and sensible in areas with vehicles crossing traffic in
so many uncontrolled places. With a bypass in place, the
traffic counts would not require five lanes (click here to see projected
traffic count). This section of US 33, based on computer projections
would have 13,163 vehicles per day in the year 2015 if a bypass is in place
by then. This is within capacity for a two-way, two lane road. One gets
the sense that Indianapolis designers are not in tune with needs here in
Elkhart County.
- mb
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