Franklin County ponders future of guardrail at "Dead Man's Curve"

Franklin County Commissioners are trying to figure out the best and most cost effective way to replace the guardrail at the intersection of 12^th street and Bluff Road in Apalachicola.

The intersection is called “dead man’s curve” because of the number of accidents there.

There is an aluminum guardrail at the intersection, but it’s there to keep people from stepping into the road - it is not designed to keep vehicles from going onto the sidewalk or into the ditch along the road.

But it is getting expensive to keep repairing the guardrail.

The guardrail has been hit at least 3 times in the past year and has cost the county about 10 thousand dollars in repairs.

The county has not been able to recoup the money because there hasn’t been any accident reports filed so the county doesn’t know who has done the damage.

County staff said commissioners might want to consider replacing the aluminum guardrail with a wooden one just to save money, but commissioners say they would need a lot more information before agreeing to that.

Instead they will have engineers from the Prebble Rish engineering firm look at the guardrail and see what their recommendation is. 

http://live.oysterradio.com/