Residents press commissioners to speed traffic study on County Road 750; staff point to county safety action plan

A public commenter asked commissioners for the status of safety work on County Road 750 (Old Sycamore), and county highway staff said the location has been moved up for study after the board requested prioritization.

"I just wanna see what the status was on 750 in Old Sycamore," said Lee Oliver during public comment. The chair responded that highway staff would engage a professional traffic engineer and prioritize the location. Amber, presenting the county's safety work, said the Howard County safety action plan — a year‑long study completed in February 2025 — ranked intersections and thoroughfares to support future federal grant applications and local improvements.

Amber told the board the plan compared Howard County to four similar counties and found a higher‑than‑state‑average share of unrestrained injured occupants; she said 23 intersections fall in the top 10% by incident ranking, that Smith Road and Davis Road ranked highest, and that County Road 750 & 00 was number 7 on the list but was moved up for expedited study at the board's request. Amber said the study's published timeframe stopped before recent incidents, so recent fatalities were not captured in the ranking methodology, which assigns numeric values to fatalities and incapacitating injuries.

A public commenter who lives near the site described poor visibility on the hill and urged speed enforcement or surveillance at the location to reduce dangerous speeding. Amber and commissioners emphasized coordinated steps — engineering study, signage and enforcement — and suggested working with the sheriff's office and school officials on near‑term education and enforcement while engineering options are explored.