There can never be to many warning lights for places like this. The morethe better.

When I lost my best friend since third grade to a "cross the median into oncoming traffic" type accident, I started to cut/paste every similar accident I came across in the news. My file contains so many of these needless accidents. I get such a sick feeling knowing each one signifies heartache for the family and friends of those killed. It isn't just the initial surprise, or the ensuing funeral, but the passing of holidays without them or seeing their children grow up and reach milestones without their mom. I wish with all my heart there had been some sort of barrier to keep the other vehicle from hitting my pal head-on. She'd just left work after emailing me, "Going shoe shopping with Lauren tonight." A half hour later, she was dead.

Needless to say, I'm thankful ANY barrier, regardless of its placement, is now in use so other families and friends can be spared such ongoing sadness.

I was in Florida in September. Every expressway I was on had these barriers. My husband said to me that they needed the barriers in Wisconsin. We were very happy to see that they had begun doing this. I hope they continue to place these barriers along the highway.

Ski-jumping was a problem a few years ago on the Kennedy Expressway in Chicago. The snowplows let a "ramp" of material accumulated next to the Jersey barriers and cars actually made the leap into the CTA tracks a few times. The inner shoulders are now kept clear. Still, it happened this summer with no snow at all (a car drove up another car in an accident).
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The third lane reconstruction will cost in the range of $5 million per mile, so even if this is ripped out later it's a minor investment in safety until that happens. Most of the Janesville-Madison stretch has a pretty wide median with different grades on hills.

bigfish1: Please follow the link for information.

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20091...

“The barriers cost about $130,000 per mile, compared to $400,000 per mile for 50-inch high concrete barriers, the newspaper reported. But while concrete barriers cost more to build, Jasper said, cable barriers require more frequent maintenance.”

” A typical hit will take out about six of the metal posts but leave the cables intact, Jasper said. The only breach so far involved a fully loaded tanker trailer, he said.”

I saw a car stuck on top of the barrier on my way to Madison yesterday. Somehow the front of the car was in the air facing the road and the back end was sitting on the other side. Don't know how that happened, but it looked like it stopped the car from spinning in the road causing more accidents. I'm still wondering how they got the car off that thing...

I beg to differ on the money savings by using the concrete barrier. Labor costs...It took months to install those wires and there will be constant upkeep everytime there is an accident. Big time money saver....

we could always destroy more farmland by separating the north south (east west) lanes of trafic by a half mile ;)

ChsMkr: Was the deer’s head stuck in the barrier between the wires? Cause it sounds like the deer was in the median from your post. And if that is the case I don’t think that the deer was strangled by the barrier because if it was it would still have its head stuck in the barrier, typically once a deer dies it does not free its head and move to a more comfortable location.

bigfish1: Those concrete barriers have more steel inside of them than what you are seeing on the side of the road, not exactly a money saver.

hannah: It seems that the overpaid engineers actually are worth the cost otherwise there would not be a need for them. The thing is that the average Joe thinks that he can do things that an engineer dose however then it costs more money in labor and materials. The engineering cost is minimal to the cost of the project, and money is saved through having the engineer design systems using less material and less assembly than the average Joe would have been able to do.

Instead of these barriers, plant trees in the median. They would stop cars, prevent rubbernecking, reduce snow drifting,and beautify the area.

Just this morning had occasion to travel to Madison. There is a deceased deer laying in the median just inside one of the barriers between Newville and Edgerton exits. I think this calls for an environmental study to make sure deer aren't strangling themselves in the taut wires. We don't want another situation on our hands like birds flying into radio towers.

Ok cars do bouce off and go back into oncoming traffic , saw it live last night.This could be a disaster if it happens at rush hour and the cars can't stop behind the accident , talk about a multi-car pile-up ! Thought the concrete barriers right down the middle would be a heck of a lot cheaper and you wouldn't need to repair after EVERY accident...very costly , more wasted money.

miyata312: Thank you for the explantion regarding motorcyclists. Having never even taken a ride on one, I envisioned an accident occurring differently. Thanks again and keep riding safely!

bunbun - for some reason, that made me laugh (the thought of ski jumping cars). It sounds like a potential sport on an obscure ESPN channel (ESPN 8, the OCHO!!)

Are these barriers really supposed to deter the idiot drivers from doing anything different then they had before? I doubt this will have any impact on those drivers. I think these barriers are waiting for worse things to come. Seriously... a semi truck is just going to run right through these barriers if they lose control on icy roads. What I am more afraid of is idiot drivers bouncing back off these barriers back into traffic taking the innocent along for a nice smash up derby.

what will be fun is when the snow packs up around and over the cables. then we get some ski jump action into the oncoming lanes. admittedly that would take a lot of icing to hard pack.

Barriers do work. I have seen them work in Europe (Germany)...............but............ what the h*** are these morons from the state thinking about? These will all have to be torn out soon when they put in a third lane which is already planned. The third lane for all the bridges have already been installed about 3 years ago and now have sat idle (aging)........Doesn't anyone have any common sense any more? Oh that's right, they are spending someone else's money, so they don't give a rip. Geez !

miyata, The only thing wrong with pea gravel in a public highway situation, is the maintenance required.
They have to be "groomed" regularly to keep the dirt and plant material out ( keeping the gravel loose in order to work) and well drained, as standing water in the gravel locks the gravel together - and ice - like today freezes it all together....
Before you question, I'm at race tracks most summer weekends.

Sarah, a rider sliding on the ground cant just STOP when he/she wants. They keep going in the same direction they started their slide until they come to a stop on their own. What these ropes could do is catch a limb/head/helmet while the rest of the body's momentum keeps the torso going. I've seen armco (the metal barriers) rip someones foot off when they slid into it at 40ish.

Janesvllegirl, you dont always have the option to bail from a bike in a crash. Heck most of the time you dont have an option to bail. Car changes lanes right into you you become a billiard ball. Car rear ends you or does the quite common "turn left in front of you" trick, you end up flying.

If a foot deep pea gravel can stop a race car from 200mph in short work, theres no reason it cant stop a car/truck from crossing over. Best thing is it doesnt need to be rebuilt every time. Just graded. Also will be safer for motorcylists. Look at how well the runaway truck lanes in the mountains work and they are gravel. Also pretty sure the gravel is alot cheaper than the rope barrier.

Best solution is for drivers to PAY ATTENTION to whats ahead of them.

bennetonf1: Washington State has studied cable median barriers and concluded there isn't a higher risk to motorcyclists than crashing into any other type of barrier.
http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/NR/rdonlyres/E77...

Not sure how a motorcyclist could be decapitated by striking this barrier. I drive I-90 daily and these barriers appear to be about two feet in height.

bennetonf1- bail off before you hit the barrier and let the motorcycle bite it, cheaper and neater than a head replacement.

Couldn't have said it better myself!

I drive 90 almost daily. There are several areas where the barrier system is in the center, or near-center, of the median. I'm glad they went in. There have been too many accidents caused by vehicles careening across the median to the other side. If this system stops even one of them, it will be worth it. There are enough idiots doing stupid stuff on that road. I don't want to have to be dodging cars coming from the opposite direction too!!Too bad if someone's car gets damaged more severely because of a run-off. There is a way to avoid that. People could actually slow down in bad weather.

What will the scene be like the first time a motorcyclist hits one of these. Decapitation? Dismemberment? No amount of safety gear will help. Pretty short sighted thinking by WI DOT.

I've seen these cable barriers in action in other states..they do work to prevent cars - and even semi's - from crossing over, thus saving lives. The bad news is to those who stray off and don't recover in time.
The cable and post system will cause much more damage to a car, than a smooth guardrail ( esp. today's 'plastic" cars)...but if that is a price to pay for safety..so be it, until they come up with something better - that doesn't cost a fortune.

when the third lane is added in each direction, it will be on the inside from Janesville south to the Illinois state line, with a concrete barrier separating the two sides. From Janesville north to Madison it will be mostly on the outside, with some inside but with the grass median retained. So the majority of the cables will remain where they currently are.

Newbie, you don't understand the physics behind these barriers. I am a retired paramedic and now (belive it or not) am an engineer. From both jobs I can tell you that the barriers are life savers. They are designed to absorb the energy from being struck and do not have the tensile strength to rebound an automobile back into traffic. The design of the posts allow for them to "give" to allow for energy disipation. They are not guard rails that could allow for rebound back into traffic. These barriers are life savers! I am very pleased to see them more and more as I travel around the country.

Also, a lot these barriers are going to need to be ripped out when they expand the road from 2 lanes to three in 5-10 years. It seems the resources used here could be better used elsewhere.

newbie- The one cable system in the middle would definitely have been better.....should ask the "engineers" why they didn't do it that way (LOL.

I have traveled the Interstate for many years and have seen every perceivable accident you can see. I do not understand the logic of the barriers. When cars go out of control due to ice or traffic coming to a sudden halt, they were previously able to go into the median. Now, they will bounce off the cable and back into traffic which will create a large mess than a car in the ditch.

If the purpose is to save vehicles from crossing the median, why didn't they put one cable system in the middle of the median. This design would give an out of control vehicle a place to go in the median, save other vehicles from being involved in the accident, and save taxpayer dollars because only one set of barriers would have been installed.

And what about snow removal? In heavy snow, the plows have a hard enough time with getting the snow off the sides of the road.

Has anyone ever stopped to think that we pass each other on all regular two lane highways every day, all across this great country, going 55 mph? Sometimes our cars are only 2 or 3 feet apart! On the interstate, the vast majority of the miles have more than a few feet of median between you and the folks going the opposite direction. Granted the speed limits are 65 or higher but it still can't make it that much more dangerous. We have had these roads since the 50's. How have we ever survived? To me the better question is how do we survive the two lane roads and highways.

As the story says, it increases the number of low-severity crashes -- where someone might have been able to bring their vehicle under control before crossing into oncoming lanes. Still, it's better to think in terms of saving lives versus saving damage to vehicles.

This will be a plus all the way around...If drivers are afraid of what the barrier will do do their car in a slide-off, they'll be less likely to drive like an idiot in the first place.....Its win win win.

While I'm elated to hear that this will hopefully prevent cars from crossing into oncoming traffic. I'm more curious to know how it'll effect the slides off that are so common to see after a snowy night. Calling for a tow after getting stuck in the median will seem cheap compared to bouncing off a barrier and causing who knows what kind of damage to your vehicle. Sounds like we might even get our first test tonight!