PRESQUE ISLE — The Northern Maine Development Commission and the Maine Department of Transportation are working together to make high-crash locations in Aroostook County less dangerous.
Jay Kamm, senior planner for NMDC, said late last week that both NMDC and the MDOT worked together to perform preliminary safety assessments of high-crash intersections and high-crash segments of highway between intersections in Aroostook County. The assessments were developed into a report that was shared with the MDOT Region 5 Office, MDOT Bureau of Planning and the local towns in which the high-crash locations are located.
Recommendations in the report offer low-cost, short-term remedies for making high-crash locations safer.
High-crash locations were identified by the MDOT as being locations with eight or more crashes and exceed the critical rate factor of 1.00 or greater within a three-year period. A critical rate factor is a statistical measure to determine the “expected crash rate” as compared to similar intersections in the state of Maine. A highway location with a critical rate factor greater than 1.00 has a frequency of crashes that is greater than the statewide average for similar locations.
Kamm said that the report provides safety assessments, recommendations and other relevant data, maps, photos and MDOT crash diagrams for 31 high-crash location intersections and links located within The County.
“Thirty-one of the crashes took place from an area between Houlton north to Wallagrass,” he said. “So that is an area that obviously we need to focus on.”
An example of a high-crash location is a portion of Route 167 in Fort Fairfield. There have been 20 crashes at this site. Blowing snow and unsafe speed account for most of the crashes there.
“A lot of times, crashes took place because drivers contributed to the crashes,” said Kamm. “For example, a driver may have been speeding, or may not have been paying attention. Also, animals contributed to a lot of crashes, especially moose. Blind driveways that people did not notice until it was too late also factored into some crashes.”
Recommendations in the report included planting windbreaks or installing snow fencing along the northern areas where blowing snow is a problem, installing deer crossing signs and requesting that the state police increase speed detail signs in some high-crash areas.
Kamm said that most of the recommendations can be instituted relatively quickly at low cost to local communities.
