Too fast, too narrow
"It feels like Woodford roads have always brought heartache," wrote Sun reporter Scott White on April 9.
"Always” is a long time. We have had a lot of "always" in the last few months. Unfortunately, we have the momentum of recent multiple tragedies and near-tragedies. We don't have to DO anything, but we may want to decide if it is time to do something.
Many of the numbered roads are unsafe—too fast, too narrow, steep drop-offs on the edges with trees, walls and telephone poles less than a sneeze from the pavement. If we widen the roads, it would be so
expensive that we would have to close the schools. We could remove three to four layers of pavement from hundreds of miles of roads and regrade them to 1890 levels. Ridiculous money! We could fill up the edges to minimize the drop off. Again, stupid money.
The only solution that won't cost millions of dollars is changing speed limit signs from 55 mph to 45 mph and marking a few extra curves in the road. It should not cost anything to make the change.
The departments of transportation, state or federal, or both, made a mistake, and it has cost us the lives of some of our neighbors. This is not a police issue. The proper speed limits would reduce their work.
This simply is a community issue.
Roger Sturgis
Versailles