The installation of a traffic signal will begin this week at a notorious intersection in which an 81-year-old Villager suffered fatal injuries in a crash earlier this year.
Sumter County has announced that work will begin Monday, Aug. 23 at the intersection of U.S. 301 and County Road 472 (Rainey Trail.)
The improvements will convert the existing directional median opening intersection to a signalized intersection, including street lighting. The contractor will be mobilizing and installing environmental measures during the first week. Traffic signal work will begin the following week, according to the county.
Catherine Lou Barnard, of the Village of Charlotte, died May 28 in the intensive care unit at Ocala Regional Medical Center after being flown there by helicopter in the wake of the crash which occurred at about noon May 25 at the intersection. She had been a passenger in a gray 2017 Honda CRV driven by her husband, 87-year-old Cornelius Barnard. He made a left turn in front of an oncoming vehicle which had been traveling “at a high rate of speed.”
That intersection has been the scene of other accidents:
• Two teens were killed in a crash this past October.
• A motorcyclist suffered a broken leg in a collision at that intersection in 2016.
