Kudos for helpful new Highway 75 traffic light

It refreshing to see that our Idaho Department of Transportation is upgrading the busy intersection of Woodside Boulevard and Highway 75 (near Power Engineers), as well as adding an innovative new traffic signal there. The stretch of road between Hailey and Bellevue is deceptively dangerous, and one merely needs to examine the road fatality statistics to see that dozens of unfortunate deaths have occurred here in highway crashes over the past few decades.

Moreover, those who perished or who were severely injured in this treacherous stretch were not mere statistics; but rather most were close family and friends of our tight-knit community.

In the further interest of safety, I would urge our that our highway department discontinue their use of the newfangled energy-saving lights, which they have “upgraded” to within their signal lamps; as these often do not generate enough heat to immediately burn off the gathering snow from their red and green light covers, during the frequent blustery blizzards we receive in winter.

Two last items that I would like to encourage our open-minded ITD administrators to focus on for our healthy future are: Lowering the speed limit on the stretch between Bellevue &  Hailey to 45 or 50 mph and installing a robust high-walled median strip between the north and south lanes (along with turnouts at the appropriate places of course).