By Steve Wilent For The Mountain Times
Commonly referred to as “Blood Alley,” Highway 26 is known to locals not just as the means of traveling in and out of their beloved mountain town, but also a route of potential dangerous hazards and even fatalities. Members of The Mt. Hood Villages have been urging local, state and county officials to bring back the safety corridor in an effort to reduce speeders, reckless driving and fatalities which recently took the life of a young, local father.
Although once a safety corridor from mile post 22.20 to 66.60, which included Cherryville Hill, The Oregon Department of Transportation [O.D.O.T.] decommissioned part of this zone in 2020 because of the decrease in vehicle related fatalities. While it has become a mission of The Mt. Hood Villages to reinstate miles of this safety corridor, according to The Oregon Department of Transportation’s Public Information Officer, Ryan McCrary, there are certain conditions the highway must meet in order to be granted a safety corridor area designation once again. The Oregon Department of Transportation’s requirements for labeling a highway a safety corridor are as follows: 1.) The five year average of the local fatal and serious injury crash rate is at or above 150% of the latest statewide five year average for a similar type of roadway [as determined by O.D.O.T. Crash Analysis and Reporting Unit. 2.] The Initial Designation Team agrees that the corridor length is manageable from an enforcement and education standpoint. The segment of highway must be similar in nature, 2-10 miles in length is preferable. Rural sections may be substantially longer than urban sections. 3.) State and/or local law enforcement agencies commit to making the corridor a patrol priority. 4.) A multi-disciplinary stakeholder group meets on a regular basis, at least annually as defined in the charter [stakeholders are defined as those individuals, groups and agencies that have expressed a current interest in the safety corridor and are considered to have a valuable input in the process].
McCrary acknowledges and understands the uptick in community concern with regard to the stretch of Highway 26 that runs through The Mt. Hood Villages and validates concerns and the statistics. “When the 41.3 mile U.S. 26 Mt. Hood Highway Safety Corridor was designated in 1996, the five year average fatal and serious injury crash rate was 225% of the statewide average crash rate for comparable highways,” McCrary said. “In addition, ODOT invested $65M into that corridor with $4.4M more worth of investments planned,” McCrary added.
While crash data for the last few years is still being analyzed [McCrary noted that 2023 data is approximately 90% complete], completed statistics from 2017-2022 shows there were 196 crashes between Cherryville and Rhododendron, six of those being fatalities. Although weather directly impacts road conditions and accidents in and around The Mt. Hood Villages, McCrary explains that the most dangerous aspect of Highway 26 is driving behavior. Adhering to posted speed limits, weather conditions and driver capability [exhaustion, visibility and substance impairment] can make all the difference in getting to one’s destination safely.