Residents Want Action After Latest Crash At Minneapolis Intersection
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Some residents of a Minneapolis neighborhood are calling on the city to take action for what they say is a dangerous intersection.
Police were called to the scene of an accident at 36th and Portland Avenue South shortly before midnight Saturday. Authorities say a driver was headed south on Portland and struck a vehicle going east on 36th Street in the intersection. Police say alcohol was likely a factor.
"Whether alcohol was involved, it's still an issue of he couldn't see where there was a light coming up or not for him," Chris Handley, who lives on the corner, said.
Chris says he and his wife witness crashes happening at least once every two weeks at the intersection.
"We hear everything, all of them," Lisa Handley said.
They've been pushing for months, along with other members of their block club, to get speed bumps and overhanging stoplights put in the intersection. They say the city hasn't responded.
"I invited [the councilmember] all the functions we gave this summer," block captain Albert Brown said. "No participation."
Currently 36th and Portland has corner traffic lights. Residents in the area say drivers often don't see them.
"My big fear is it's going to be a pedestrian, we're going to find in a really bad way," Lisa Handley said.
WCCO reached out the neighborhood's councilwoman, Alondra Cano. She said the city added patrols in the area to monitor speed, but that the money for speed bumps would have to come through fundraising and not the city. Neighbors say cost shouldn't be an explanation.
"Why is it going to take somebody's life, because we feel that's what it's really going to come down to to get some attention," neighbor Regina Brown said.
Councilwoman Cano says public works is planning to conduct a speed study in the spring just a couple blocks north on Portland.
The three people involved in Saturday's accident were transported to Hennepin County Medical Center with non-life threatening injuries.
