Warrick County is now home to the second Displaced Left Turn (DLT) in the state of Indiana.
It’s a little after 8:30 Tuesday morning, and the long-awaited DLTs have just opened. Gary Brian with the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT), is pleased.
“It's been going really smoothly,” he said. “We're really excited about this intersection being open.”
It’s located at Epworth Road and the Lloyd Expressway just inside Warrick County.
Right away a couple work trucks have pulled into the new left turn lane, stopping behind a new secondary light. In this case it’s near the big Deaconess sign on the Lloyd.
Brian explains what’s happening.
“So right now, as the traffic heading westbound is at (the red light) , any left turns could be made onto this; the ‘slip lane’ is kind of what we call it here, and they'd come all the way up here to where it's red. And once it goes green, everybody can make their left.”
And they do, pulling ahead to the primary light between two west-bound lanes, which Brian said can take some getting used to.
“But I think people, when they actually drive through it one time, they'll notice it's pretty simple. It's pretty intuitive.”
More than 70,000 motorists are expected to use the new DLT, according to INDOT.
The purpose of these turns are to reduce congestion and dangerous right-angle collisions, Brian said.
“The right angle crashes are the ones where we get a lot of incapacitating injuries and deaths. We also want to make sure that we're increasing or decreasing, if you will, congestion during our high times.”
This is going to be one of several along the Lloyd Expressway in Vanderburgh County for the separate Lloyd4U project.
There will be some form of DLTs at the Lloyd Expressway and Cross Point Boulevard and Burkhardt, Stockwell and Red Bank Roads.
Brian said the displaced left turn won’t be replacing all left turns – it’s just helpful in busy, crash-prone areas. Other new options are hybrid intersections and roundabouts.
INDOT and Lloyd4U recently held informational sessions for the public on these intersections.
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