ThisWeek CW 10/24/2013
Officials hope a traffic study by the Franklin County Engineer’s Office, combined with new signs and traffic-calming measures, will help reduce speeds on some Madison Township roads.
At the Oct. 16 Madison Township trustees’ meeting, Fire Chief Robert Bates showed a picture from a Sept. 30 Winchester Pike accident where it appeared as if the whole road was ablaze after a semi-truck collided with minivan near Shannon Road.
Fortunately, according to Bates, no one was critically injured in that crash.
Police Chief Michael Ratliff said that in response to residents’ concerns about speeders and semi-truck traffic, and an uptick in traffic issues in general in the area, the township is working on new traffic-calming measures, including a speed study.
“As you saw from Chief Bates’ pictures, you can see what type of accidents we’ve seen at intersections like Shannon, so use caution in that area,” Ratliff said. “We’ll put the speed information trailer on Winchester Pike and hope to slow people down, but it’s 55 mph through there anyway.”
Administrator Susan Brobst said township representatives have been in talks with the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission, the cities of Groveport and Obetz and the Franklin County Engineer’s Office to discuss truck traffic, particularly near Toy, Swisher and Saltzgaber roads.
“We had roundtable discussions with representatives from these groups to discuss the truck traffic on these three roads and the fact that they can’t handle that traffic,” Brobst said. “We’re looking at new signage to be posted to restrict that, particularly now that Obetz has several additional warehouses by Swisher Road with their entrances off of Centerpoint Parkway.”
According to Brobst, the new signage is awaiting language approval from Groveport. She also said the township has further identified four potential new stop signs to help calm traffic in the Blacklick Estates subdivision.
Possible sites for the signs are:
* Fullerton Drive at either Bonita Drive or Evanston Road.
* Clearwater Drive at either Harbor Boulevard or Laguna Drive.
* Fountaine Road at Baynard Drive.
* Sedalia Drive at Clearwater Drive.
Ratliff said there are multiple possible stop-sign locations on Fullerton and Clearwater drives because those named intersections are so close, and he and Road Superintendent Terry Spangler wanted to present those options to the county engineer.
“Spangler and Chief Ratliff went out looking at realistic potential places for new stop signs and they identified four locations,” Brobst said. “Before we can put up any of these stop signs, the county engineer has to do their traffic study and provide us feedback, so we’d like to submit those locations to the Franklin County Engineer’s Office to get that moving.”
The trustees approved Brobst’s request to move forward with the potential traffic sign changes and the traffic study.