Plymouth, MI :Crashes more common in I-494 work zone on Monday, July 6th 2015

A jackknifed semi-truck shut down Interstate 494 northbound at Highway 55 for nine hours Monday—a stretch of highway that's become more common for vehicle accidents, according to statistics from the Minnesota State Patrol.The truck and trailer hauling grain slid onto the construction barrier about 6:30 a.m. causing rush hour gridlock.No one was injured in the wreck, but the crash stopped all northbound traffic, limiting the highway to one lane in the southbound direction.Dump trucks were called in to offload the grain before reopening the interstate at 3:30 p.m."In a situation where we have limited room for shoulders, it makes things much more difficult to clear quickly," said Lieutenant Tiffani Nielson of the State Patrol.Crash figures show accidents on this 11-mile stretch of construction on I-494 between I-394 and I-694 in the Plymouth area have become alarmingly common.According to the State Patrol, there have been 39 accidents since June 1 this year on that stretch of highway. In the same time period last year—before the construction—there were 19 crashes."Doesn't surprise me. We tend to see more crashes in construction zones. Cars are packed closer together. There's less room for error. Drivers make judgment calls and they hit each other," said Nielson.MnDOT is trying to reduce congestion by using a movable traffic barrier that allows two lanes southbound for heavy morning traffic and then shifts to allow two lanes northbound at night.The lanes are standard sized, according to MnDOT, but without a shoulder on either side of the highway, there is no room for error.

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Crashes more common in I-494 work zone