TO REVIEW and comment on plans for redesigning this intersection, go online at: plantogether.org.
It may be the worst intersection in Morgantown and that’s saying a lot.
Turning left onto Willey Street from Richwood Avenue near downtown is as bad as it gets for drivers. As for pedestrians, it’s simply unsafe to cross Willey to a nearby convenience store, which thousands of WVU students do — day and night.
None of this surprises anyone who has made this turn or crossed this segment of road. What is a surprise is no one in recent memory has died there as a result of this intersection. Certainly, there are any number of near misses daily.
But what does surprise us is the seemingly total lack of urgency to make this intersection safer. To its credit, the Morgantown Monongalia Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) recently began taking public input for a study to potentially redesign this intersection.
That effort comes at the behest of the city, but judging by initial discussions any redesign won’t happen before we return to the moon.
Yes, city residents and others should get involved with this initial public comment period. However, improving this intersection should be more of a priority than it appears to be now.
Another impetus for improving this intersection is the result of several tragic pedestrian accidents elsewhere in Morgantown. Following those accidents in early 2018, the city, Monongalia County, WVU and MPO met to discuss improving pedestrian safety.
That group identified areas of concern for pedestrian safety and one of them was this intersection.
The volume of traffic and pedestrians at this intersection does not rival others in the greater Morgantown area. However, the design of this intersection relies on blind luck and a prayer, rather than safe access and adequate sight lines.
One simple solution, some suggest, would be to negotiate buying the structure at the tip of this intersection and razing it. That would improve drivers’ sight lines of traffic coming downhill on Willey Street and would mitigate the need to hurtle like a stone out of a slingshot off Richwood.
Thousand of vehicles funneling into our narrow roads and streets — some one-way — frustrate even the best engineers. And there are entirely too many intersections to police.
Still, we can no longer afford to simply file these numbers away until the next traffic count or an accident happens.
This intersection doesn’t just pose the threat of a terrible accident waiting to happen. In fact, it won’t be an accident at all. It will virtually be by design until something changes.
