Serving Lucas, Ottawa, Sandusky and Wood Counties
Two intersections in Northwood have been under study by the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT), while three Wynn Road intersections in Oregon were the topic of lengthy discussions at the most recent committee of the whole and regular council sessions.
In Northwood, ODOT has completed a safety study at the intersection of Williston Road and Fostoria Road, and they are working on a study of the Bradner Road and Williston Road intersection.
“There’s been a noticeable uptick in incidents at those intersections,” Northwood city administrator Kevin Laughlin said. “As part of their safety study, ODOT goes through and looks at all of the alternatives, and at the end of the study, there's this matrix, and they looked at a roundabout, a traffic light, (and a) four-way stop (as potential solutions).
“There might have been one or two other kind of iterations, but I think the roundabout scored a 10 and everything else was a five or lower.”
Thus, Williston and Fostoria appears headed for a roundabout depending on ODOT’s decision, although the cost would not come from city dollars.
“As it stands now, it is a 100 percent ODOT-funded project,” Laughlin said.
Whatever the result of the study is at Bradner and Williston, that project would also be ODOT-funded.
“From the administration's perspective, we need to do something about safety,” Laughlin said. “The city has done the things that it can do. We've added rumble strips. We've added lights to the stop signs. We've added the stop ahead sign.
“We've pretty much taken care of all the low-hanging fruit. Basically, where we are now is there has to be a major change to (Williston and Fostoria) to increase safety. We're more than happy (with ODOT’s studies). We've submitted a letter of support, and we're more than happy to support the project.”
Oregon looking to improve Wynn Road
In Oregon, an ordinance authorizing the mayor, finance director and director of public service to enter into an agreement with Tetra Tech to provide preliminary design services for a Wynn Road roundabout feasibility study in an amount not to exceed $100,000 passed by a vote of 4-2, but failed to pass as an emergency.
With that, council will still proceed on working with Tetra Tech, but they will have to wait 30 days to do so. The idea behind passing it as an emergency stemmed from wanting to get ahead of the curve on applying for potential grant money depending on how the safety studies unfold.
The ordinance is for the potential installation of roundabouts at three Wynn Road intersections – Corduroy, Pickle and Brown.
The city of Oregon’s public service director, Paul Roman, said at the committee of the whole meeting on April 7 that Tetra Tech was determined to be the most qualified out of five letters of interest they received, and he said they’ve designed approximately 45 roundabouts since 2009 with 25 in the Northwest Ohio area.
“The idea is to get what’s feasible at these intersections,” he said. “You want to get an idea of how much right of way you would need, a cost estimate and just basic alignment.”
Roman said the problem he sees is the two-way stops.
“Nobody wants accidents,” he said. “Unfortunately, in traffic design, you need accidents to warrant a change and when it comes to just adding stop signs, you can’t just go from a two-way to a four-way stop unless there are five accidents or more per year. All three of these intersections average 3-4 accidents per year. In some cases, they may go no accidents for a year and all of a sudden, they get three accidents in a row.
“The problem is that you can’t just add the stop signs. It seems simple, but you can’t. If you do and there are more accidents, you’re liable. When it comes to traffic lights, you need almost 800 vehicles an hour. These intersections are not that busy so traffic lights can’t happen.”
Roman said roundabouts can be put in with fewer accidents per year, but they’re expensive. Because of that, he is very reserved at doing things like putting in a roundabout unless they can get grant dollars, which is what they would pursue should that be the recommended path.
“The idea is to get one grant from one agency and use that to score another grant from another agency,” he said. “The hope is to get 80 or 90 percent of these projects paid for. I don’t think I would do this without grant money.”
Roman added that you’re not going to eliminate accidents, but the roundabouts would reduce the severity of them. He said that Corduroy and Wynn is probably the strongest candidate for a roundabout out of the three, and there have been two fatalities there.
“From a safety grant perspective, it could be a very good candidate,” he said. “Brown and Wynn will definitely have a lot more accidents as well. Pickle isn’t as many. It has some difficulty (though). It has two big culverts we’d have to look at. They’d need to be moved or realigned. There’s a lot of details you’d have to look at.”
Anything that the city is proposing in conjunction with Tetra Tech would be for single-lane roundabouts.
“These are not multi-lane,” Roman said. “Certainly to start out, I would never suggest multi-lane roundabouts. It seems like a lot to start, but that is three intersections. These projects can easily hit $1 million with the right of way and everything else involved. I can’t see doing it without getting grant dollars before deciding to do it. There’s a lot of public meetings you’d want to do to coordinate this.”
Councilman Steve Hornyak asked if the three intersections referred to are the most dangerous in Oregon.
Roman said no, but they are the best candidates for roundabouts.
“Coy and Navarre was for a long time was,” he said. “We’ve done improvements, and I’d still say it can be dangerous. Even with traffic lights, an intersection can be dangerous. I think your most dangerous intersections are with traffic lights. I’m saying these three are probably the best candidates for roundabouts.”
City administrator Joel Mazur said the people he’s spoken with near the Wynn and Pickle intersection would love to have a roundabout.
“They know the dangers and what’s not counted in the traffic studies and the counts of accidents - near misses … where cars are driving off the road because they’re trying to dodge someone not doing the right thing,” he said.
At the April 7 committee of the whole meeting, council agreed to move the issue forward to the regular council meeting on April 14, where a further discussion took place with community and council members, along with Lucas County engineer, Mike Pniewski.
“The biggest impact of a roundabout intersection is that it eliminates the two types of crashes that cause deaths and serious injuries, which are head-to-head and t-bone crashes to the side, perpendicular,” Pniewski said. “Those are eliminated at a roundabout intersection. Most types of crashes that you’ll get are sideswipes and fender benders.
“Also, most serious and fatal injuries occur because they occur at high speed as people try to rush a stop sign, (or) people try to rush a traffic light. People try to make a left turn movement to try and beat a light or someone in upcoming traffic. You won’t have that at a roundabout intersection.
Pniewski also noted that the frustration of waiting for lights when nobody is around is eliminated with a roundabout.
“Lights are timed for the peak hour,” he said. “That happens one hour a day. I know a lot of people get frustrated. They sit at a light, and there’s nobody there. You don’t have to worry about that at a roundabout intersection. It also keeps cars moving through the roadways.”
Pniewski also used the McCord Road corridor as an example, which he said is almost all roundabout intersections now and only two of them still need a roundabout.
“You can go from Holland almost all the way to Central Avenue, and you don’t have to stop,” he said. “It cuts significant time off of people’s commutes.”
Perhaps the most impactful argument for the roundabouts came from Tony Smith, a Pickle Road resident who gave an emotional statement about three of this daughters who have been in a combined three accidents at the Pickle and Wynn intersection.
On June 9, 2017, his oldest and middle daughters were traveling west on Pickle, and a van traveling south on Wynn ran the stop sign going 40 miles per hour. That driver impacted the front passenger side of the vehicle his daughters were in, which spun the car around and forced it to land in the yard across the street.
His youngest daughter was traveling west on Pickle on June 19, 2020 and a large truck with a deer rack on the front ran a stop sign going north on Pickle and Wynn, hitting the driver’s side door and pinning her in the vehicle. The fire department had to pry her out of the car.
On Nov. 6, 2024, his youngest daughter was again traveling to work and a car ran a stop sign at Pickle and Wynn, totaling his daughter’s Jeep.
Another resident, Laura Davis, spoke against the roundabouts, concerned about the cost, but also pointing out that she has seen some of the improvements the city has tried to make.
“I’m glad you see those things that I believed at the time would work, but we still keep getting the accidents,” Roman said. “I’m at a point where I don’t know what else to do.”
Kathy Wasserman, who has lived close to the Pickle and Wynn intersection starting approximately two years ago, said that when she moved in that there were near misses every time she came home.
However, she said she is now seeing people sitting at stop signs and not pulling out like they used to after flashing lights went up.
“I noticed people are paying more attention to the stop signs, so that’s why I was surprised when they started talking about roundabouts because it seems like a lot of money for the amount of traffic I see in my neighborhood … it seems kind of unwarranted at this point if people are starting to slow down. The flashing lights are getting their attention.”
Also during the discussion on the topic during the regular council meeting, it was noted that traffic light additions are not grant eligible per the federal government.
Mazur pointed out that, between the April 7 committee of the whole meeting and the April 14 regular council meeting, another accident occurred at Pickle and Wynn.
Following that, another resident came up, and he said he didn’t understand why this was even a discussion after hearing everyone speak, in particular Tony Smith.
“I’ve sat here and I’ve listened to Mr. Roman,” he said. “I’ve listened to the Lucas County fella, and I’ve listened to the folks on the panel talk, and I’ve listened to Mr. Smith. Mr. Smith makes the story that I don’t even know why we are discussing this.
“If we save one life with a roundabout, I don’t care about how much yard you have to give up. I don’t care how much you have to give up for that one life. And he’s had three daughters that he’s almost lost. To me, we’re talking apples and oranges here. We’re talking about an intersection that everyone admits (is) dangerous. Let’s do something about it. Let’s make the change.”
Councilwoman Kathleen Pollauf moved for passage of the ordinance, and it was seconded by Hornyak. Both of them voted for the ordinance along with council president Terry Reeves and Dennis Walendzak. Beth Ackerman and Steven R. Salander said no. Paul Drake was not present.
