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Median left turn to remain at Preston and Legacy; configuration no longer planned for other intersections
By Conner Hammett, chammett@starlocalnews.com
The Plano City Council elected to keep the median left turn located at Preston Road and Legacy Drive for now but not implement the idea at other intersections at Monday night's preliminary meeting.
At the council's July 23 meeting, council members largely reached a consensus in favor of keeping the Preston at Legacy intersection's original configuration. But they had not decided whether to still implement the idea at Plano Parkway and Preston and Spring Creek Parkway and Coit Road, two other intersections planned for upgrading to median left turn configurations.
At this week's meeting, Police Chief Greg Rushin presented to the council up-to-date crash statistics that showed a 15 percent drop in the number of accidents occurring within a 30-foot radius of the intersection.
Fifty-three crashes were reported between Nov. 1, 2007 and July 27, 2009, the 21-month period before construction began on the new median left-turn configuration. Forty-five crashes, two of which have occurred in the new turnaround lanes, have been reported between the intersection's Sept. 1, 2010 reopening and May 31, 2012.
Thirty-seven crashes occurred inside the intersection during the period before the new lanes. In the period after the installation of the new lanes, 26 crashes were reported.
"As you can see, the crashes in the intersection have decreased significantly," Rushin said. "I believe that's about 30 percent, unless you add the turnarounds, which are the new left lanes. Then, it's about 24 percent."
Crashes that caused injury to one or more passengers, however, have increased by 42 percent since the installation of the median left turn lanes. In the period before the lanes, eight possible injuries and 14 non-incapacitating injuries have been reported. Since the lanes' installation, 14 possible injuries and 13 non-incapacitating injuries occurred. While no incapacitating injuries have occurred in the periods before or after construction of the new lanes, one such injury was reported during the construction period between July 27 and Aug. 31.
Significantly, crashes caused by a driver failing to yield to right-of-way have gone from 14 to zero. In addition, crashes caused by drivers changing lanes while it is unsafe went from seven to one. Crashes caused by drivers disregarding intersection turn marks went up from one to six.
"That's because now you can no longer make that left turn and some people insist on making it and they're having crashes," Rushin said.
Rushin said the crash statistics "speak for themselves."
"Any time you take a left turn out of an intersection and move it somewhere else, you think you would decrease the number of crashes, because a great many crashes occur from turning left," he said. "If the alternate way to turn is safer, you should have a safer intersection."
When asked by Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Ben Harris, who expressed displeasure with the project at the July 23 meeting, how much of a decrease in traffic the intersection at Preston and Legacy has seen, director of public works Gerald Cosgrove said that the amount of traffic is probably the same as it was before, though the reduction in the number of left turns has considerably reduced wait times on Preston.
"We have made that through movement at Preston so much better than it was before," Cosgrove said. "Remember, when you went through there during rush hour, it would back up as far as Hedgcoxe in the morning and Tennyson in the afternoon."
Harris said he was "still not sold" on the idea, believing that many motorists are merely avoiding the intersection now that it has the unorthodox left turns, but said he was willing to move on from the topic.
"I don't have the data here to look at it, but offhand I'd say there's still more than a 15 percent decrease in traffic or at least people that are using it, and we still have a 42 percent increase in injuries," he said.
Mayor Phil Dyer said he was not in favor of bringing the median left turn configuration to other intersections and is still keeping an eye on the developments at the intersection of Preston and Legacy. Several other council members expressed similar sentiments.
"I'm not sure that turning back to the original form would certainly gain us any safety, and that's the primary objective," said Andre Davidson.
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