- On Tuesday the Omaha City Council approved a new $30 million parking facility along west Saddle Creek Road
- Residents say that drivers cutting through their street makes them feel unsafe
- Watch to learn more about Elmwood residents' concerns
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
More development is coming from the University of Nebraska Medical Center, on Tuesday the Omaha City Council approved a new 30 million dollar parking facility along west Saddle Creek Road. It is part of their Catalyst project.
New construction has nearby residents worried about their daily commutes. Neighbors say the ongoing road construction along Saddle Creek and Leavenworth already adds time to their drives.
"For my husband and I, we kind of can't avoid it in order to get to work so it's probably a good ten minutes every morning to and from and it also just feels a little bit more dangerous admittedly," said Megan Nichels.
Another neighbor, Courtney Kleebs, started living in Elmwood before construction began and says as it keeps creeping closer and closer to her neighborhood, some drivers look to avoid the traffic by cutting through their street, putting neighborhood kids and pets in danger.
"A lot of the traffic gets diverted off of onto this road so especially late at night we have a lot of like, I'd assume drunk drivers that aren't really paying attention and don't really realize this is a residential area and they go really fast. And it's a problem when you're walking your dogs," said Kleebs.
Several neighbors added that drivers cutting through their street makes them feel unsafe and say they've witnessed multiple accidents due to the lane closures.
"It's been maybe twice or three times now that, I think that one of them was a drunk driver, that went into the actual construction and broke a water main, so we didn't have water for one night because somebody wasn't paying attention to the signals and the construction," said Kleebs.
Nichels told us she works in health care and is happy the medical center is expanding, but hopes as it expands they take better measures to ensure her neighborhood's safety.
