Transportation Officials Seek Truck-Only Lanes To Improve Highway Safety

By Alison Gonzalez

Published on April 14, 2008

The proposal would add four center lanes for truck drivers — two going eastbound and two going westbound. A grass barrier would separate the truck lanes from the nearby car lanes. To exit the freeway, trucks would first merge into car traffic via special ramps.

The design’s project manager, Kenny Voss, said the extra lanes are an obvious safety improvement to the busy highway that approximately 10,000 trucks drive on daily.

Nearly 27 percent of accidents involve a truck, and 38 percent of those are fatal, Voss said.

In addition to increasing highway safety, the new design would help improve traffic flow when truck accidents occur, which can block multiple lanes.

So far, reviews are mixed. At the hearing, some attendees agreed that separating trucks and cars would reduce incidents between the two. Others talked about the dangers of having trucks merge from the left side of the road. For highway patrol officers, getting to the center truck lanes may be difficult if the lanes are separated with grass barriers, according to an officer at the meeting.

Transportation officials said they consulted with major truck industries about the design.

The new lanes would cost around $4 billion. So far, there is no government funding for the project.

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