Neighbors pushed back Wednesday against a proposed roundabout at Main Street and Starr Avenue in East Toledo, part of a $28.5 million federally funded project to improve the Main and Front streets corridor connecting East Toledo to the downtown riverfront and Glass City Metropark.
“If they put a roundabout at the corner of Main and Starr, they're gonna probably double or triple the accidents that they have there now,” said Scott Shafer, a neighborhood resident and business owner. “People don't stop and slow down for traffic lights here. At a roundabout, they're just gonna fly through it.”
Mr. Shafer was one of several people who spoke out against the proposed roundabout at a public meeting hosted by the city of Toledo at Glass City Enrichment Center on Front Street. About 50 attended.
He spoke after Simon Nyi, grants commissioner for the city, and Tim Bockbrader, landscape architect at EDGE, a Toledo landscape architect firm, unveiled the street improvements project.
“People don't navigate them [roundabouts] very well, and people around here don't pay attention when they're driving,” Mr. Shafer said as multiple attendees nodded in approval. “So, you're just going to hurt the community.”
Sherry Scott, another neighbor, interrupted Mr. Shafer a couple of times with outbursts of approval.
A roundabout at that intersection would be a hazard to pedestrians, she said, the next person to take the floor.
“I don't see cars stopping for pedestrians[at that roundabout],” Ms. Scott said. “How are pedestrians going to cross that intersection? We have a lot of foot traffic on the East Side. And [a roundabout here] just doesn't make any sense.
“Cars [will] just keep going through them and through them and through them. They will speed only worse. It's fine the way it is. If it ain't broken, don't fix, she said, followed by at least one neighbor who echoed her words.
Gary Lenhart, a community coordinator at One Voice for East Toledo, then took the floor and turned toward event organizers.
“It's not a pushback against roundabouts,” Mr. Lenhart said. “It's about the location.
“We specifically feel it's a bad location at Star and Main because there's an [Educate Academy] daycare there and because it's a tight location for a roundabout. People will get trapped in the circle and won’t be able to get across.... To calm traffic, just put a four-way stop there.”
Mr. Lenhart emphasized that the Garfield Neighborhood Plan, a community plan put together by Toledo Design Collective, a nonprofit urban planning group, with public participation, “expressly shows it as a four-way stop.” Garfield sits just across the Maumee River from the downtown district.
“That's what the residents agreed to and wanted at that time,” he said.
Mr. Shafer then challenged event organizers to “take responsibility” if injury accidents at the intersection go up after the roundabout is built, to which Tim Grosjean, the city’s senior professional engineer, replied that he would do so because he was sure the incidence of serious injury accidents would go down.
During his presentation Wednesday, Mr. Nyi said that the project, including the roundabout, was meant to slow down the vehicular traffic in the area to make the streets safer, noting that from 2018 to 2022, there were a total of 125 injury crashes in the project area, including two fatal and 14 serious-injury accidents.
That included a pedestrian fatality on Front, he said.
At least one person in the audience disagreed with the roundabout critics.
“I am, and I think many people in East Toledo are very happy to finally have the attention on the East Side and this development. … We're looking forward to it,” said Peter Ujvagi, a longtime East Toledo resident, former state representative, Lucas County commissioner, and Toledo city councilman.
“As far as the roundabout is concerned, I have a line saying about that,” Mr. Ujvagi said. “Even the Romans figured out how to use a roundabout with chariots. So, we ought to be able to figure it out [with cars].”
The overall improvements projects would:
• Street realignment and improved crosswalk conditions at Front and Main.
• Street realignment and narrowing, and a multi-use path connection at Main and Boers-Boyer Way.
• A roundabout at Main and Starr, “with places for pedestrians to pause as they pass through.”
The city also plans to make the following improvements to the Front Street and Main Street corridors:
• Front Street from Main Street to the Craig bridge will include median islands, trees, streetscaping and new pedestrian signals and crosswalks.
• Front Street from Oak Street to the Craig bridge will be resurfaced.
• Main Street from Starr Avenue to Boers-Boyer Way will include new and improved pedestrian crosswalks and streetscaping.
• Main Street from Front Street to Starr Avenue will be resurfaced.
The exact federal grant amount available for the project is $28,487,659, with no money coming from the city or any other source. Of that money, between $1 million and $2 million would be spent on the roundabout, according to Mr. Grosjean.
The next step in 2024 is to negotiate and execute a grant agreement with the U.S. Department of Transportation, to be followed by a Toledo City Council hearing, and a bid design contract once the council approves the project.
Project design, right-of-way certification, environmental review, and obtaining permits are to begin in 2025 and are expected to be completed in 2026, according to Mr. Bockbrader.
A construction bid and contract are scheduled for 2027, with construction to start later that year and to complete by the end of 2028, he said.
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