Barriers Urged for Highway Section
Concerned about the continuing fatalities from head-on car collisions, county supervisors are urging Caltrans to install barriers between lanes on a stretch of California 126 known as “Blood Alley.”
The supervisors unanimously supported a resolution calling for the barriers after a plea by Fillmore Mayor Pro Tem Roger Campbell, who is also assistant chief of the city’s volunteer Fire Department.
“Since 1989, there have been 29 deaths--every one of them preventable by barriers,” the councilman told the supervisors. “The barriers won’t stop accidents, but they will stop head-ons.”
State transportation officials have opposed the dividers, in part because the barriers would limit access to the numerous residences and businesses that line the corridor.
What’s more, the department is in the middle of a lengthy effort to widen the highway to four lanes from Ventura to Santa Clarita.
But Campbell said the four-lane sections have no dividers. He wants to apply pressure for immediate action by getting formal resolutions passed by every elected body in Ventura County. “This highway has twice the accident rate of any other,” he said. “This has got to stop.”
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