BEATRICE – The City of Beatrice has officially adopted a Safe Streets and Roads for All plan, aimed at addressing high traffic, poor safety areas where accidents, including injuries and fatalities happen.
Approval by the city council is seen as a step toward helping secure federal grant funding for major improvements.


"Beatrice is actually the first community in Nebraska to complete a safety action plan, using Safe Roads and Streets For All funding."


A study by JEO Consultants was the result of a grant-funded effort originating in 2022. Senior Project Manager Mark Lutjeharms says a six-member local advisory team helped in the process and input was sought through social media and public open house events. The study recommendations try to address the fact that too many people die or are injured in motor vehicle crashes annually.


"The fact that death and injuries are unacceptable...secondly, that humans do make mistakes...third, humans are vulnerable...fourth, there is a multitude of responsibilities that are shared in the reason for these crashes...fifth, that safety can be proactive....and sixth, that the redundancy to prevent crashes in crucial."


The JEO study looked at ten years of crash data in Beatrice….including crashes that resulted in injury or death.  "There were a total of just over 22-hundred crashes, 503 of which either involved a fatality or an injury to one or more of the occupants...and of those, 46 were either fatal or severe injury crashes...with 41 of them involving what we refer to as VRUs, or vulnerable road users....anyone who is a pedestrian or a bicyclist."


The study also designated areas where a so-called high-injury network of roads and intersections exists. Key focuses were on pedestrian and bike safety, traffic management and speed control, infrastructure planning, driver behavior and community awareness.


Lonnie Burklund, Business Development Director for JEO said the plan’s needs assessment showed U.S. Highway 77 through Beatrice is a high priority for better safety.  "Our prioritized project group number one, is basically to implement a more holistic project along U.S. Highway 77, really through most of limits of the city, from Dorsey on the north, down to Mulbery on the south. What we were recommending there, is to look at a three-lane street section, reconstruction, sidewalks that are set back...improve a whole lot of the intersections along there that had noted safety issues, and I think this project alone, although it's a big, major project, it would address basically nine of the top twenty high crash locations that were on that priority list."


A second area is Court Street…where projects will be moving forward with a relocation of a truck route. Burklund says improvement from about 1st to 10th Street would help address a half-dozen high accident locations. A third group of projects focuses on Lincoln Street.


"That would address some of those remaining intersections where there was already prior study done along Lincoln Street. There's kind of a gameplan there in terms of the sidewalks and adjacent trail, intersection fixes and some alignment issues."


Burklund says the city has a fantastic trails network and he says there are opportunities to enhance that with connecting areas and improved street crossings.

Lutjeharms says having the plan in place can help a city apply for support to make improvements. "Looking at funding sources, there's a lot of grants that are out there related to safety....more than we've probably ever seen in my 25-or-30 year career. It's a big theme right now, to help communities fix safety problems. You took advantage of that with your downtown project, which is awesome. That is going to be a game changer for helping to improve safety."


Beatrice City Council President Mike McLain says the important step now will be to implement recommendations in the plan…not see the study just sit on a shelf.