State offers to study Hwy. H safety

The state Department of Transportation has offered to conduct a safety study of Highway H from the Washington County line to Highway A on the west side of Fredonia and from Highway 57 east to I-43 in Port Washington after a study found that crash rates on the road are higher than the average on similar highways.

The study, known as a corridor safety evaluation (CSE), is a prerequisite to submitting a High Risk Rural Roads Program grant application to the DOT for low-impact safety improvements along the highway, such as additional signage, striping or rumble strips.

The study would be done at no cost to Ozaukee County, county Highway Commissioner Jon Edgren said this week in a memo to the county Public Works Committee.

A stretch of Highway NN in the Town of Cedarburg was awarded up to $300,000 last year to make improvements through the same program after several serious crashes happened there in recent years.

Edgren said there was no single crash that alerted DOT officials to potentially dangerous conditions on Highway H.

“WisDOT simply looked at accidents on various stretches of county highways, and those with higher than ‘normal’ crash rates have been suggested for the CSE and potential High Risk Rural Roads Program,” he said in an email.

“I don’t think that there’s one specific incident that generated the CSE, but there have been several at the Highway KK and Highway H intersection.”

Other high-crash areas on Highway H include near the intersections of Highway B, Lovers Lane Road and the stretch between Little Kohler and Fairway Drive.