Service Committee hears public comments on Re-Striping Court Street

Circleville City Council Service Committee Chairman Tom Duvall welcomed the public to discuss plans for re-striping Court Street to create three 12-foot lanes, one in each direction and a middle lane for left-hand turns at the most recent Service Committee meeting.

Currently, Court Street has four 10-foot lanes, two in each direction north and south. Duvall informed the audience that there would be 30 minutes set aside for public comments, 15 minutes for those opposing, and 15 minutes for those supporting the re-stripping.

Council member Theis stated that the matter would not be settled at this meeting, but that it would be:

(1) voted on to send to the full City Council at the Tuesday, Aug. 6 regular meeting,

(2) voted down or

(3) tabled

Duvall provided a slide presentation that sought to answer many of the questions raised at the May 14th Service Committee meeting.

The rationale for re-stripping is to create wider travel lanes and negate the need for vehicles to illegally park over curbs as well as to reduce the number of accidents. An additional consideration is to improve the safety of drivers exiting their vehicles and for citizens placing and removing children and groceries from their parked cars.

Safety comparisons between Court Street and Main Street (which has the three-lane configuration envisioned for Court Street) provided the following statistics:

• daily traffic count: 7,456 (Court) — 10,139 (Main)

• accidents last 12 months: 64 (Court) — 54 (Main)

• accidents per 100,000 vehicles: 0.858 (Court) — 0.631 (Main)

The statistics in the presentation were generated by Strand Engineering under a “Safer Streets for All (SS4A)” grant program, for which the City paid just $50,000 of the $250,000 total cost. The conclusion of the SS4A study called for a “road diet”, the reducing of the number of lanes from 4 to 3 and adding a center left turn lane.

Brian Thompson, Circleville Fire Chief, said that the re-striping “will not affect us,” noting that Pickaway Street and Main Street are similar to what is proposed. Duvall stated that a survey of downtown stores and businesses were overwhelmingly in support of the re-striping.

Plans for parking on Court Street will not change.

After Duvall’s slide presentation was completed, comments from the public were received. Aaron Barthelmas was the first speaker and made these points:

(1) he advocated for a five-way traffic light at Court & Main but noted that major infrastructure changes would be required,

(2) it is the driver’s responsibility to look in their side mirror and make sure there is a break in traffic before opening their door to exit their vehicle,

(3) even with the wider lanes on Main Street, opening the driver-side door safely requires looking for a break in traffic, and

(4) traffic will back up if there is only one lane, and someone in that lane is trying to parallel park.

Wes Hart observed that there are currently four lanes going north-south across Main Street — two on Court, one on Pickaway and one on Washington — and thus, implementing the “road diet” would reduce the number of lanes by 25%.

An audience member noted that the current pattern on Court Street is “grandfathered-in.” If the re-striping plan is implemented and then later found to be a mistake, it would not be possible to return to the current pattern.

Jeff Coleman suggested a low-cost safety solution involving a change in the timing of the lights. Instead of the current “green-green-green” timing pattern, Coleman suggested a “go-on-green” timing pattern which would result in drivers experiencing more red lights when they travel on Court Street. This timing pattern would reduce the common practice of increasing speed to make a green light.

Helen Maddox, who lives on Court Street and is in favor of the re-striping plan, told the story of two young men who, while working in her front yard for most of a day and witnessing the speed of the traffic, asked, “Is it always a drag strip out here?”

After the public comments, Duvall summarized the situation, saying, “We’ve looked at the data as you have asked us to do. The studies that we’ve done shows to me that it is more dangerous to drive on Court Street compared to Main Street. The study from the outside engineering firm said very strongly that, of the three main corridors in the City (UDF-East, UDF-West, and Court), Court Street has the highest crash density.”

Councilman Jeff Hallinin noted that the difference in the number of accidents on Court versus Main over the past year is only 10 accidents (64 on Court, 54 on Main), about one per month.

Council member Theis said she wanted to send this matter to the entire council so everyone could be involved in the conversation. On that basis, she moved to forward the ordinance to the full council for their next meeting on Tuesday. August 6th. The motion was carried 2-1 with the approval of Theis and Duvall. The third member of the Service Committee, Councilman Zach Brooks, voted “No.”

Richie Verrito noted that most of the accidents on Court Street happen at an intersection. He asked if there was any data about the cause of the accident. He was concerned that if most of the accidents are caused by the drivers going east-west at the intersections on Court Street, then it would not be the fault of the existing striping pattern on Court Street.

Mayor Michelle Blanton stated that her administration would need to investigate each accident report to determine fault. She also noted that the accidents at Court & Main would need to be analyzed to see if that accident was attributed to Court Street or Main Street. Blanton stated a willingness to analyze the data and report back to Council.

Based on the requests for more data, the Safety Committee voted to cancel the earlier motion to refer the matter to the full council. Discussion of the re-striping plan will stay with the Safety Committee.