More crashes occur on Sunshine than any other street in Springfield, and the street’s rate of accidents is more than double the average of other five-lane roads in the state. That’s because of congestion combined with that two-way turn lane in the middle – it’s a really risky place to take a left. The street falls under MoDOT’s jurisdiction because it’s a highway, and they’ve been collecting public input on a fix since 2022.
Their current proposal targets a corridor about 4 miles long. Raised medians would block access to the turn lane in four spots totaling about 3/4 of a mile. There are also plans to remove driveways, improve stop lights and add more pedestrian crossings.
But the big point of contention was those medians. For example, council heard from a Walmart representative who said that the installation of medians by the Neighborhood Market on Campbell and Grand led to a 15% decline in sales. Sheriff Jim Arnott also made an appearance, arguing that, at 8 inches high, they’d impact the ability of first responders to maneuver.
Also mentioned on both sides was the city of Bryan, Texas, which recently installed a series of raised medians only to consider removing some due to negative traffic impacts. As noted in the presentation, however, Bryan’s medians covered the entire 5 miles of their respective project area, whereas MoDOT’s proposal only covers around 18% of the Sunshine corridor…