For the second consecutive year, West Badger Road and South Park Street topped the list of crash-prone crossings compiled by the city, with fatalities and bike crashes up across Madison in 2009 compared to the previous year.

Most of the 4,753 crashes last year happened in daylight, under blue skies, on dry roads and absent liquor or snow, a city traffic report issued Monday showed. That may be explained by increasing motorist impatience and aggressiveness, city traffic engineer Mark Winter said.

"Failure to yield shows up a lot," Winter said. "In my opinion, in the past 10 to 20 years, drivers are getting more aggressive, more impatient. I think that's a kind of cultural thing that is happening. We don't want anything in our way."

Most of the high-crash intersections involve main arterials at peak hour, he said.

"You could have the most well-planned intersection," he said, "but the more vehicles you throw into it, there are going to be crashes. It's just human nature. When the intersection reaches capacity, people start to make mistakes and get inattentive."

Adam Mellenberger, who works nearby West Badger Road and South Park Street, said he avoids the intersection if possible because of the heavy volume.

Drivers sometimes have to wait two traffic-light cycles before being able to pass through it, Mellenberger said

"(The intersection) turns into a parking lot" around 5 p.m. when people are trying to get on the Beltline, he said.

Mellenberger said the traffic signals are old and, in the sunshine, difficult to see.

South Madison Branch Library librarian Chris Wagner said it's hard for pedestrians to move around Park Street near the intersection because the walk lights are very short. "People are coming off the Beltline so fast and aren't expecting people trying to walk," Wagner said Monday.

Winter said the city and the state Department of Transportation have already begun work to improve the intersection, including adding signs to alert motorists to the traffic lights.

Traffic decrease on main roads

The report, issued annually by the City Traffic Engineering Division, is based on state Department of Transportation data. The numbers differ from those compiled by Madison police, which uses broader criteria to define a crash and its location, Winter said.

Among the 2009 statistics:

• The average weekday traffic volume at arterials decreased almost 8 percent over the last five years, steadily dropping from 26,271 vehicles in 2005 to 24,222 in 2009. Winter said the reason is likely a combination of a sputtering economy, with more people using buses, and road construction on major arterials that would force motorists to use other roads.

• The number of fatal crashes more than doubled in a year, from six in 2008 to 14 in 2009. Of the 14 fatalities, all but one occurred in areas east of the State Capitol, Winter said.

• In accidents that involved motorists and bicyclists, motorists received tickets 46 percent of the time, and bicyclists received tickets 17 percent of the time.

• Bike crashes increased from 95 in 2008 to 115 in 2009.

Second worst: Commercial Avenue and North Thompson Drive

The report named the 30 intersections with the most crashes.

The second most dangerous intersection was Commercial Avenue and North Thompson Drive, followed by a three-way tie: South Midvale Boulevard and Mineral Point Road, Portage and Thierer roads and South Blair Street and John Nolen Drive.

Winter said the Commercial Avenue and North Thompson Drive intersection is a roundabout.

"Roundabouts do have crashes associated with them," he said. "Drivers do tend to bump into each other in there, but the severity of the crashes is very low. That's an acceptable tradeoff."

And the South Midvale Boulevard and Mineral Point Road intersection is a high-volume site with complicated signal timing and no room to widen the streets.

"Right now, we are balancing things the best that we can," he said of that intersection. "Drivers just have to be careful."

The 3700 block of East Washington Avenue topped the list of the 30 highest non-intersection crash locations (26 crashes), followed by the 3800 block of East Washington Avenue (16 crashes), the 1200 block of Williamson Street (13 crashes), and the 2200 block of South Park Street.

— Reporter Alicia Yager contributed to this story.