COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado — The pace of new home construction in the northeast part of Colorado Springs appears to be moving too fast for public infrastructure to keep up. On Thursday morning, a car crash occurred at an intersection that neighbors believe has become increasingly unsafe as traffic volume has swelled.
The wreck happened just before 8:00 a.m. Thursday at the intersection of Old Ranch Road and Chapel Hills Drive/Chapel Ridge Drive in Pine Creek.
While officers are still investigating the cause of the wreck, they say that two people were taken by ambulance to the hospital.
The intersection is not listed among the 25 most dangerous intersections tracked by the Colorado Springs Police Department.
Nevertheless, the city's Traffic Engineering Department recently measured the traffic volume at the intersection and contracted to have new traffic signals installed.
Tony Serafino lives a short distance from the intersection and said that he sees collisions here "all the time."
"Traffic off of Powers with the lanes here, the speed limit is 40 and cars easily do 60 or 70," he said. "So, that doesn't help. And so, I even called the police, they don't have the resources."
The intersection is located less than half a mile from the Powers Boulevard overpass. Serafino said he doesn't allow his children to cross the street to walk to school because he doesn't feel that it's safe.
"With the schools, this should've been taken care of years ago, or at least over the summer before kids are trying to cross the road to get to school."
While he is grateful to see a traffic light being installed, he thinks that these types of road improvements should begin much earlier in development.
"It has to be more measured planning, you know, then we'd have intersections like Research and Powers and intersections like this," Serafino said.
Installation work on the traffic signals is expected to wrap up by January 1.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article incorrectly identified Old Ranch Road as Old Farm Road.
