The City of Lincoln saw a 14 percent rise in traffic accidents between 2006 to 2007, according to a report released by Mayor Chris Beutler's office last week.
The mayor said winter weather is largely to blame for the increase: The city accumulated 33 inches of snow in 2007, compared to only 18 inches in 2006.
The public suffered an estimated loss of $191 million from the 8,642 crashes occurring in 2007. Lincoln recorded 7,584 crashes in 2006.
"Maybe it's snow, maybe it's congestion," said Shane Dostal, senior engineering specialist with the city's Engineering Services. "But if you look at it over time, (accidents) haven't gone up a whole lot."
Between 2003 and 2006, the number of crashes steadily decreased, but jumped again in 2007. Although the numbers appear to be up, the city still remains well below the numbers reported for 2003 and 2004.
The number of fatal and injury crashes, which carry the greatest cost to the public, have also followed this trend.
"Those are what cost the city, both as far as loss of human life or time off work," Dostal said.
The largest increases were in non-reportable collisions or those which caused damage to property of more than $1,000.
Non-reportable accidents are those in which no one was killed or injured, and the estimated cost of damage is less than $1,000.
When a winter storm is looming, city employees and contractors start working to keep roads clear before the first flakes hit the pavement.
"This past weekend we had people ready to go about 4 p.m. Friday afternoon," said Randy Hoskins, assistant city engineer for Lincoln's Public Works Department.
The snow began to fall roughly two hours later.
Hoskins said the city owns 82 pieces of road-clearing equipment, which it uses for less severe storms, and also has contracts with local farmers and construction companies for an additional 90 pieces of equipment, which were needed to keep streets clear this past weekend.
This equipment includes large street-sweepers and sand-spreaders all the way down to farmers' tractors equipped with graters.
The city uses accident reports to see where the most crashes are occurring and tries to deduce what might be causing them.
Hoskins said the city looks at two different statistics in determining which intersections are the most dangerous: Number of crashes per million vehicles entering and total accidents for the year.
He said the most accidents occur at intersections off 27th Street, both at Cornhusker Highway and O Street, but the crossroad with the highest accident rate is 14th and Pine Lake streets.
Dostal said the city will analyze the numbers and propose projects to curb accidents at problem locations.
"There's a lot of stuff we try to do as far as implementing (change)," he said. "We try to do as much as we can with signal timing as well as sign and (street) marking modifications."
These are cheap ways to make streets safer when more expensive strategies, such as widening roads, aren't possible because of space constraints.
The road-widening project three years ago on 48th and O streets, a high crash location at the time, was aimed toward safety, with 80 percent of the money coming from the federal government through Nebraska's highway safety board. The city paid the remaining 20 percent of the cost.
Another such project was the addition of two roundabouts on Sheridan Boulevard, something Hoskins said "was able to really reduce the number of crashes."
Even with the city's effort to constantly improve streets, with a 45 percent rise in Lincoln's population since 1988, some areas are bound to be congested.
"Sometimes you build a nice new road," Dostal said with a laugh, "and everybody finds it."
evancotten@dailynebraskan.com
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