Moving mountains: Blasting and clawing toward a safer U.S. Highway 385 (By South Dakota News Watch)

Moving mountains: Blasting and clawing toward a safer U.S. Highway 385 (By South Dakota News Watch)
Read the full article by Bart Pfankuch at
https://www.sdnewswatch.org/black-hills-us-385-project-highway-construction-road-closures/

The $72 million highway rebuild that began in 2024 will widen and enhance safety on a 15-mile stretch of the narrow, winding two-lane highway that flows amid scenic lakes, rock walls and dramatic ridge lines but which also has a high rate of crashes and fatalities.

Construction will include widening of road shoulders, smoothing out of sharp curves, adding turn lanes and softening off-road slopes to make the road safer. The construction route runs from Sheridan Lake on the south to the Pennington-Lawrence county line on the north.

Making room for wider lanes has required the use of dynamite blasts and removal of jagged rocks and huge boulders by giant construction excavators.

Seeking to cut accidents by 50%
The overall crash rate on the stretch of highway being rebuilt is more than double the state average, according to DOT data. 

In the five-year period from 2018-2022, 187 crashes were reported, with four fatalities and 57 injuries. A third of those wrecks and most of the deaths occurred when motorists left the roadway, which in spots has almost no shoulder space while closely abutting rock walls or rimming atop significant drop-offs.

The DOT’s goal is to cut the crash rate on the segment of highway by 50%, largely by eliminating tight curves, expanding sight lines for motorists or expanding shoulders from 2 to 8 feet, which has a proven success rate in reducing run-off wrecks.