Improving safety on Westheimer (and it's not about towing cars)

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According to KHOU-11, left-turn cut-thrus are being eliminated on a section of Westheimer:

Westheimer’s numbers help tell the story. They show the eastern section — from the Loop to the Beltway — had 2.5 times the number of wrecks per mile as the state average.

Even so, an improvement project under way since last summer was never about safety — it was about mobility. Texans, it seems, don’t mind dying. they just want to do it in a hurry.

The state, though, now believes it’s found ways to speed up traffic and make it safer by getting rid of the cut-thrus.

“They’re called conflict points,” said John Bobo, who ran a study of Westheimer’s problems.

He said the cut-thrus are the worst of the problems. They are the openings in the median for left-hand turns or U-turns. They often cause cars to back up into traffic which leads to collisions when people try to get past.

Most of those cut-thru’s will now be disappearing and, some say, not a minute too soon.

The project is expected to be completed by the summer.

At least it’s not a project to make Westheimer one-way.


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Anne Linehan is a co-founder of blogHOUSTON.