Watch out, Ankeny drivers, because the crashes that happen at Ankeny Boulevard and First Street put the intersection at the top of an undesirable list.

An Illinois law firm calls it "the most dangerous" intersection in Iowa, although the Iowa Department of Transportation — which compiled the data that the firm relied on for its article about the "most dangerous intersections" in every state — says danger isn't exactly what was measured.

The Iowa DOT this year ranked the intersection of Ankeny Boulevard and First Street at the top of its list of 200 Safety Improvement Candidate Locations. The data for the list was gathered from 2012 to 2016.

Rankings are based on three measurements: 25 percent is based on total crashes, 25 percent is based on crash rates, and 50 percent is based on the severity of crashes, according to the Iowa DOT.

In the last five years, the Ankeny intersection has experienced 116 crashes and 57 injuries. There were five serious injuries and no fatalities during that period of time. In an average day, over 36,000 cars enter the intersection, according to the data.

Ankeny intersections make up three of the top 10 on the Iowa DOT's list.

"It has a ton of traffic and, I’m sure, a ton of crashes," said Steve Gent, director of the Iowa DOT office of traffic and safety. "It’s probably a medium-to-low on the severity scale, but it ranks pretty high on those two other scales."

This method attempts to take into account urban and rural areas, Gent said. Urban areas may have more crashes, but they're less severe. Meanwhile, rural areas may have fewer but more severe crashes.

Among the top 10, the only rural intersection is U.S. Highway 65 and Iowa Highways 330 and 117, in northwest Jasper County. Plans for a new interchange, expected to be completed in 2018, attracted attention because of resistance from well-known organic vegetable farmer Larry Cleverley, whose land was seized for the project.

So is the Ankeny intersection truly the state's most dangerous?

That's subjective, Gent said.

He said other agencies may use different measurements than the Iowa DOT to determine the severity of crashes at intersections.

Being at the top of the DOT list also isn't a strict indication of hazard, but rather a sign that improvements are necessary, Gent said.

"There are all kinds of ways to slice and dice this," Gent said. "Because the reality is we could fix all of these. We could close them down for the next five years and there will still be a top 200 list."

Top 10 locations

The Iowa Department of Transportation identified these 10 intersections as the highest priority for safety improvements based on five years of data:

Ankeny: Ankeny Boulevard and First Street. Council Bluffs: Interstate Highway 29 and 30th Avenue. Sioux City: West Seventh Street and Hamilton Boulevard. Des Moines: Day Street and Sixth Avenue. Cedar Falls: Iowa Highway 27 and Viking Road. Jasper County: U.S. Highway 65 and Iowa Highways 330 and 117. Des Moines: East University Avenue and East 30th Street. Ankeny: Ankeny Boulevard and Southeast Magazine Road. Burlington: U.S. Highway 61 and West Avenue. Ankeny: Ankeny Boulevard and Third Street.

Ankeny's strategy

Ankeny is currently designing improvements to Ankeny Boulevard and First Street, said Mark Mueller, Ankeny public works director.

He said the city knows there are crash problems at the intersection. The main issues are the left-turn lanes in the area. There are two westbound left-turn lanes on First, while there is only one eastbound left-turn lane.

“It creates an off-set situation,” Mueller said. “The crashes that have occurred out there I know have been from a sideswipe.”

Starting in 2018, Ankeny will start construction to make improvements to the intersection. It recently received a $500,000 grant from the DOT for safety improvements. The total cost of the project is about $650,000.

Ankeny plans on removing a westbound left-turn lane on First Street, among other improvements.

“We know there’s a crash history there, and that’s why we’re moving forward with that project to address that issue," Mueller said.