The canopy of trees lining East Platte Avenue will be spared as Colorado Springs traffic engineers seek ways to reduce the number of wrecks on a stretch west of Union Boulevard.

Motorists too busy talking on the phone, fixing their makeup or wheeling and dealing don’t notice cars ahead of them trying to turn left into Walgreens or Burger King or onto one of the side streets. The result is an extraordinary number of rear-end and chain-reaction wrecks.

In earlier blogs, I detailed the problem with wrecks and the residents’ insistence the city not widen the road to create turn lanes because adding pavement would mean subtracting trees which line the curb.

Concern led residents to organize the Historic Platte Avenue Neighborhood Association to lobby City Hall. The gorup plunged into fray and began working with a city-sponsored safety group studying the issue.

Presto, a compromise has been announced by Dave Krauth, city traffic engineer. It will result in a small concrete median built from Union west past Meade Avenue. See the FlashEarth.com image below.

The median will prevent left turns off Platte. In addition, the city will install signs on the side streets of Farragut, Logan Foote and Sheridan avenues where they intersect with Platte. The signs will ban most left turns onto the major arterial.

 It will be right-in, right-out. (Kind of like Colorado Springs politics!)

Krauth said the city also has agreed to install flashing speed monitoring signs. But the neighbors are thinking about whether they want the flashing lights all night. The idea already provoke arguments among neighbors.

The city also will use pavement paint to create an optical illusion of narrow lanes. The idea is to naturally prompt lower speeds by suggesting a tight driving area.

Read about the city’s East Platte Avenue Safety Project at this link. There are some meeting minutes and cool crash photos taken by neighbors at this site. And here is a link to my previous blog on the subject.

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