SARPY COUNTY, Neb. (KMTV) — One of the fastest growing areas in the metro is seeing major changes and the infrastructure is trying to keep up.
People who use 150th St on Hwy 370 worry it's a crash waiting to happen.
Business along the highway is growing--and with that comes more vehicles.
An increase of businesses to the south is causing congestion in the area--especially when there wasn’t a traffic light--with cars having to turn left or right in the middle of a 55mph road.
Fred Humpal is a service tech at Priority 1 Fitness. He says at 5:00p.m., it’s a log jam.
“It's a long line. You can wait a good 15-20 minutes in line just to get to the intersection,” said Humpal. “We got a lot of big trucks that go in and out of that intersection so I think safety is a big issue, especially with large vehicles having to go through that intersection."
This week, the Nebraska Department of Transportation turned on the traffic lights at the intersection.
NDOT says the developer on the north side paid for a traffic study and now the traffic light.
A 2018 estimate indicates about 16 thousand vehicles pass the intersection everyday.
“Currently, the traffic is high enough to warrant the traffic signal. Again, we've been watching it for several years waiting for those thresholds to be met in order to install those traffic signals,” said Tim Weander, NDOT District 2 engineer.
More development continues, like the amazon delivery center and Hy-Vee.
Sarpy County Commissioner Jim Warren says it's overdue.
“Traffic here is horrendous--especially a lot of worker traffic as well as truck traffic coming out of the depots, as well as amazon and different things like that,” said Warren.
The state says there’s going to be more on this busy highway. People will see more intersections add traffic signals and changes to intersections towards the east and west.
