Future of Northwood roundabout project unknown

The Jan. 23 Northwood city council meeting featured further discussion on the potential roundabout at the intersection of Woodville and Lemoyne.
 
In regard to background on the project, the two-mile section of Woodville Road from Norcross Drive to Williston Road has been identified as a high-crash area with injuries and fatalities. Safety and feasibilities were done, and the roundabout was identified as the best option for “improving safety and connectivity, reducing congestion and long-term traffic growth.”
 
That proposed fix, which has been the identified solution for six years, is said to reduce conflict points from 32-8 for motorists, as well as reduce travel speeds and eliminate the potential of head-on and T-bone collisions typical in signalized intersections.
 
The project currently needs authorization to sign ODOT’s LPA agreement, which allows Northwood to move forward to the project. A vote to allow the city administrator, Kevin Laughlin, to sign the agreement failed 4-3 at the latest council meeting.
 
Laughlin and city officials are currently going over potential next steps, but a possible additional wrench in everything is the unknown of potential grant or funding cuts at the state and/or federal level, which puts the $4 million in grant money allocated for the project into question until more answers are known from the state, and Laughlin said they aren’t getting very clear answers from the state at this point.
 
Citizen pedestrian concern
The discussion on Jan. 23 first centered on a local citizen, Dennis Bohland, who wanted to make sure the pedestrian crossing aspect of the project would be built prior to the roundabout.
 
Officials said the goal was to finish the crossing beacon next year with the roundabout debuting some time in 2028.
 
Additionally, it was council’s hope that Northwood schools would move their official crossing to the beacon and have the crossing guard there, but it is ultimately up to the school.
 
Fostoria Road roundabout
Bohland also asked about the potential of a roundabout project at the intersection of Fostoria road and 579 and whether or not it would possibly create an either-or situation with the Woodville-Lemoyne roundabout.
 
Council members said that would be a separate ODOT project, and it wouldn’t interfere with the Woodville-Lemoyne one financially. That Fostoria road project is in the feasibility study phase at this moment, and council is of the understanding that ODOT would “probably” fully fund that project.
 
Planner’s thoughts
Pat Etchie, who is a project manager that has helped Northwood through the roundabout project since its inception, spoke at the Jan. 23 meeting prior to the vote, and he addressed some of Bohland’s concerns.
 
At present day, Etchie said that pedestrians and students have to cross five lanes of traffic as opposed to the roundabout, which would only require two lanes of traffic being crossed at a time. Plus, the roundabout typically reduces the speed of vehicles down to 15-18 miles per hour.
 
Another feature, Etchie said, of modern roundabouts is that they have “rapid flashing beacons” where a pedestrian pushes a button to activate all signals to flash yellow to warn motorists of pedestrians ahead.
 
“Those are things that will go into the preliminary engineering phase (of the project) and eventually work towards the final design,” Etchie said while also emphasizing there would be public-input meetings during that phase, as well.
 
Notes
The finance meeting was rescheduled from Jan. 23 to Feb. 13 at 6 p.m. The regular city council meeting will take place afterwards.
 
For the second consecutive year, Northwood was designated as Tree City USA by the Arbor Day Foundation.