Local businesses give Route B/Paris Road safety audit recommendations

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

The Road Safety Audit (RSA) team for Route B/Paris Road met with local business owners Wednesday to discuss what changes they would like to see made to the corridor.

The Road Safety Audit is a project that was launched to help the City of Columbia reach it's goal of Vision Zero, a project looking to make Columbia roads safer.

The City of Columbia Public works commissioned the safety audit, in response to multiple deadly crashes that have occurred along the corridor.

RSA reported that in 2017-2021 there were 4 fatal crashes

• 2 involved motorcycles
  • 1 angle crash
  • 1 rear end

• 2 involved pedestrians
  • walking southbound on shoulder
  • walking southbound in the middle of the road
• 4 on dry pavement
• 4 on clear weather
• 4 at night

There have been 3 fatal crashes reported in 2022 so far

• 2 left-turn at Paris & Vandiver
  • 1 involved a motorcycle
• 1 head-on
  • northbound vehicle crossed into southbound lanes striking southbound vehicle

The team also reported that speeding is another issue they are looking into following a recent observation the group conducted. During their time on the road they found that the 85th percentile of drivers go close to ten miles over the speed limit.

Krista-Shouse Jones said they have already made some improvements following its initial findings from the surveys.

Jones said "MoDOT changed the signal timing at Route B and 63 at one of those intersections, because we were hearing from road users that they were frequently seeing crashes at that location, and that there was some commonality with how those crashes were occurring." 

The Route B/Paris Road public comment survey is still on its website, and Jones said they hope more people will continue to voice their concerns.

"It's absolutely crucial really hearing from the community and from the businesses along this route. Those are our eyes and ears that we don't have on the corridor every day," said Jones.

RSA is currently in the middle of it's project timeline, and hopes to release the final report in October.