Installation of median cable barriers begins along I-80 southwest of Gretna

SARPY COUNTY, Neb. (WOWT) - A construction project is underway that’s aimed at reducing head-on crashes in Nebraska.

Cable median barriers are being installed along a 12.5-mile stretch of Interstate 80 southwest of Gretna.

This stretch of road has a history of deadly crashes.

A Lincoln man died in March when his pickup truck crossed the median and slammed head-on into another pickup.

In 2019, a 4-month-old girl died in a head-on crash during a storm.

Brandon Kimes drives the stretch of road regularly.

Kimes said, “There’s always a lot of traffic and its people going too fast or too slow and everything in between and so it’s just always a little unnerving.”

The median cable barriers installed by the Nebraska Department of Transportation consist of a cable attached to metal posts that are embedded in the ground in concrete.

Iowa began installing these barriers in the early 2000′s.

NDOT Highway Safety Engineer Don Butler said the state considered installing the barriers around the same time but decided against it.

Butler said, “We looked at research in other states and they said that because we have wider medians, it was not going to be a good benefit for us.”

However, since then Iowa has had dramatic success. Research shows the barriers reduced deadly head-on crashes dramatically.

Butler says the research prompted Nebraska to reconsider.

Butler said, “There was a really good research paper published by the Iowa Department of Transportation in 2018 that we reviewed that had excellent information that helped us get a better understanding. The other piece is that as speeds have increased both speed limit as well as driver speeds, that’s increasing the probability of making it all the way across.”

The hope is the barriers will decrease fatal head-on crashes in Nebraska as well.

Butler said, “We’re continuing to roll this out in areas that we think it is going to be successful and to keep monitoring to make sure we keep having success.”

In Nebraska, cable median barriers are also along I-80 west of Lincoln and the Kennedy Freeway in Bellevue.

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