Caitlin McGlade

The Republic | azcentral.com

The mechanics at the automobile-repair shop at 59th and Olive avenues do more than fix cars.

They frequently rush out to offer emotional support or call for ambulances for the multitude of vehicle accidents they see.

With nearly 70 crashes last year, the intersection had the most in the Valley, according to an Arizona Republic analysis of Arizona Department of Transportation data.

Bryan Smith, a 30-year-old mechanic, and his coworkers at Z's West Olive have seen their share of violence at the corner.

Pieces of rib cage jutting out from a fallen biker's chest. A car launched into the back of a bus. A couple hurled into the backseat of their car.

Smith said he doesn't blame the drivers alone. The intersection is one of many in the Valley that remain a high priority for traffic-safety experts year after year.

Officials study the most dangerous cross-points, typically over three-year periods, to improve safety for drivers. Over the past few years, Valley cities have made changes — swapping traffic-light heads with larger ones, changing the font on signs and installing countdowns at crosswalks.

Even with the improvements, officials expect to see the same intersections with high crash counts based on sheer traffic volume and distracted drivers.

Most of the top 10 high-crash intersections lie west of Interstate 17 and east of Loop 101 in the West Valley, a fact that has experts at the Maricopa Association of Governments perplexed.

Leonard Clark, a 50-year-old west Phoenix resident, said he thinks driving in the area is so risky that he worries for his family members.

"It's like Russian roulette," Clark said.

Traffic experts have limited resources, so they must prioritize which intersections to improve based on the number of crashes, severity of crashes and traffic flow.

59th and Olive avenues

We've all been there. The dreaded unprotected left turn. You wait patiently in the middle of the intersection for vehicles to whiz past. And finally, there's space to turn. Until you notice a pedestrian crossing.

Now, you're stuck. The light turns yellow. Then red. You cross your fingers and hope the oncoming car will yield.

And if it doesn't?

That scenario is one of the reasons that mixing a lot of pedestrians with a lot of drivers creates a recipe for accidents, said Sarath Joshua, an intelligent transportation systems and safety program manager at Maricopa Association of Governments.

Such was the plight of thousands of drivers a day at 59th and Olive avenues in Glendale for years.

Some 2,200 pedestrians and 60,000 vehicles a day pass through the intersection, according to Glendale. Students flock in and out of Glendale Community College; commuters stop to gas up at Circle K or fill up at McDonald's; residents travel to and from their homes and buses make frequent stops.

Hence, a flurry of activity that leads to rear-end and left-turn collisions.

Even Smith's girlfriend, Caitlin Morse, who had also worked at Z's, wrecked four years ago. A car hit her passenger side as she turned left.

"I was already nervous about the intersection because I had already seen the accidents there," Morse said. "I really don't like making left turns anymore."

Traffic solutions

After monitoring the intersection and poring over research, Glendale officials launched a plan a few years ago to improve the 59th and Olive intersection.

The city has painted boxes that require vehicles to stop farther away from the light, staggering the boxes for each lane to improve visibility. It also changed the traffic signals to allow drivers from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. to turn left only when they have the green arrow. And for pedestrians, the city installed crosswalk countdowns and audible signals for those with poor sight.

Other changes are in the works. Over the next few years, the city will widen the road for a bus bay and install medians to keep people from turning left before the intersection. The double-yellow line doesn't always stop people, said Cathy Colbath, Glendale's transportation services director.

The city will conduct studies to determine the effectiveness of its changes, but Smith said he has already noticed fewer accidents. At least, he said, he's not having to help accident victims once a week.

Improvement costs

The traffic improvements come with a hefty price tag.

Installing the boxes and changing the signal cost about $50,000 and staff time for Glendale. The future fixes will cost more than $2.2 million. The majority of that comes from federal dollars.

ADOT administers federal money to local agencies and is finishing a new highway-safety plan that could impact how it distributes funds in the future, Joshua said.

The Maricopa Association of Governments gets $1.9 million a year to offer in grants for projects like Glendale's.

Kerry Wilcoxon, a Phoenix traffic engineer, said limited funding has curtailed some traffic-safety projects.

McDowell Road and 32nd Street has landed on the city's priority list for years. Phoenix had hoped to buy property on the southwestern corner of the intersection, clear it out, install a bus bay and a right-turn lane, and make changes to the traffic signal.

But the city's request for $2 million from ADOT came back with a tacit approval of about a half-million dollars. The city has since reduced its plans to change only the traffic signal.

2013: Intersections with the most crashes

The most crashes were in the central and west portions of the Phoenix area, a fact that stumps the Maricopa Association of Governments.

A.59th Avenue and Olive Avenue: 68 crashes, 30 injured.

B. 83rd Avenue and Bell Road: 61 crashes, 22 injured.

C. 59th Avenue and Bell Road: 57 crashes, 23 injured

D. 67th Avenue and McDowell Road: 57 crashes, 27 injured.

E.59th Avenue and Thomas Road: 53 crashes, 25 injured

F. 59th Avenue and Northern Avenue: 51 crashes, 35 injured

G.75th Avenue and Indian School Road: 51 crashes, 38 injured.

H.67th Avenue and Indian School Road: 49 crashes, 28 injured.

I.Price Road and Chandler Boulevard: 49 crashes, 13 injured.

J. 27th Avenue and Camelback Road: 48 crashes, 17 injured.

K. 43rd Avenue and Thomas Road: 48 crashes, 34 injured.

L. Rural Road and University Drive: 48 crashes, 11 injured.

* To determine which intersections had the most crashes and injuries, The Republic used data from the Arizona Department of Transportation. The data included crashes within 150 feet of intersections as reported by law-enforcement officers in 2013.

Source: Republic analysis of Arizona Department of Transportation data

2013: 10 Intersections with the most crashes that caused injuries

1. Seventh Street and Union Hills Drive: 23.

2.(tied) 59th Avenue and Olive Avenue: 21.

67th Avenue and McDowell Road: 21.

75th Avenue and Indian School Road: 21.

5. (tied) 59th Avenue and Thomas Road: 19.

75th Avenue and McDowell Road: 19.

7. (tied) 27th Avenue and Glendale Avenue: 18.

32nd Street and Greenway Road: 18.

59th Avenue and Northern Avenue: 18.

10. (tied) 35th Avenue and Cactus Road: 17.

43rd Avenue and Thomas Road: 17.

51st Avenue and Northern Avenue: 17.

51st Avenue and Van Buren Street: 17.

Accident clusters

Drivers in Arizona actually have a lower risk of crashing compared to drivers around the nation, according to a late-August Allstate Corp. study.

The study recognized Glendale as the second-worst city for driver safety in the state, citing that residents are 3.2 percent more likely to crash than other Americans and they go about 9.7 years between accidents.

Phoenix ranked the worst, as residents are 5.7 percent more likely than Americans overall to crash and go about 9.5 years between collisions.

Phoenix, however, is the safest place for drivers among cities with at least one million people.

10 steps that improve intersection safety

Cities can take steps to reduce collisions. The solutions vary depending on the problem and could include only one or two of these fixes.

• Right-turn bays: A city may widen the road for a right-turn-specific lane if experts find that the intersection sees a lot of rear-end collisions as drivers slow down to turn.

• Protected left turns: A city may set the traffic light to allow left turns only during green-arrow signals if a lot of crashes occur when left-turning drivers must wait for a gap in oncoming traffic to make a move.

• Prohibited turns on red: A city may prohibit such turns if visibility of oncoming traffic is limited.

• Large signal heads: Many traffic lights in the Valley have been changed out from 8-inch traffic-light heads to 12 inches to better catch the driver's attention.

• Countdown pedestrian timers: More and more pedestrian signals provide a countdown so pedestrians understand precisely how much time they have to cross the intersection. This ideally cuts down on last-minute sprinters if they know they have only two or three seconds, as opposed to a vague flashing hand signal.

• Reduce vegetation: Sometimes making an intersection safer is merely a matter of cutting down vegetation that is blocking a sign or two.

• Medians: Cities install medians between opposing-direction lanes to regulate the number of turns on a busy road. Double yellow lines send the same message but don't provide a physical barrier for many drivers who either disregard or don't notice them.

• Pedestrian-walkway lighting: Some cities are trying out this new trick but there is some debate over how effective it is to plant lights in the pavement lining the pedestrian walkway.

• Clear-view font: Agencies statewide have been swapping out old signs with new ones, equipped with a special font with wider spaces within and around each letter.

• Extra enforcement: Sometimes, an intersection might experience a high crash rate because drivers are speeding or breaking traffic rules. The fix might simply mean deploying more law enforcement to that area to monitor behavior.

Source: Sarath Joshua, intelligent transportation systems and safety program manager at the Maricopa Association of Governments

Why these intersections?

Most of the intersections that see the most crashes have wide roadways and are within the central and west portion of the Phoenix metro area, where commuters frequent arterial streets and the areas have a high density of neighborhoods, apartments and businesses.

1. 59th Avenue and Olive Avenue. Average drivers per day: 60,000. Students flood in and out of Glendale Community College, which sits at the northwestern corner of the intersection. Neighborhoods flank the southeastern corner and lie just north of Olive Avenue as well, past a strip mall and a few other joints including McDonald's and a Jack in the Box.

2. 83rd Avenue and Bell Road. Average drivers per day: 85,000. This corridor is one of the most heavily traveled in the Valley, so frequent fender benders naturally turn up here. The Loop 101 exit practically sits on top of this intersection and a range of restaurants, stores, gas stations, car dealerships and neighborhoods sprawl around the area while drivers often weave in and out of parking lots.

3. 59th Avenue and Bell Road. Average drivers per day: 70,000. Bell Road is one of the busiest corridors in the Valley. At this intersection, all of that traffic meets the traffic from commuters who use 59th Avenue.

4. 67th Avenue and McDowell Road. Average drivers per day: 60,468. This is where southbound commuters meet eastbound commuters who are avoiding Interstate 10. In addition, large apartment complexes and single-family neighborhoods fill out the surrounding area.

5. 59th Avenue and Thomas Road. Average drivers per day: 65,891. 59th Avenue is popular for West Valley-based commuters driving north and south. In addition, parents. kids and school staff come and go to Cartwright School on the southeastern corner of the intersection.