TRUMBULL COUNTY Traffic study needs a revise

Howland officials are concerned about increased traffic.
By DENISE DICK
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- A traffic study submitted by the company developing a Sam's Club off state Route 46 needs some work.
Goldco of Austintown owns the property where the DeBartolo Property Group of Pepper Pike, Ohio, wants to develop the store. The property is in the city, but Howland controls the land along Route 46 where the driveway to access it would be.
Howland officials are concerned about increased traffic in the area. Earlier this year, Trumbull County Planning Commission rejected a survey map of a section of the property targeted for the store until there is some resolution of the traffic situation.
The map showed the extension of a private drive off Route 46 in Howland, several hundred feet back to where the store would be constructed within Warren city limits.
Darlene St. George, Howland administrator, has said that a recent report from the governor's office of highway safety listed Trumbull County's worst intersections because of crashes as one on state Route 46 near the entrance to Lowe's and the second worst at state Routes 46 and 82.
At a meeting last month when the city's planning and platting commission approved early plans for the project, representatives from the development company said a traffic study had been submitted to the Ohio Department of Transportation.
Meeting canceled
A meeting had been set for Thursday among ODOT, city, township and company officials but was canceled because the traffic study was missing some elements.
"The overall study that was submitted didn't fit our requirements," said Mohamed Darwish, ODOT's deputy director of District 4.
The study didn't include information on the future land configuration taking into account the state's plans to re-stripe and add new lanes on state Route 46. It also didn't use calculations for traffic volume and vehicle trips that conform with ODOT's traffic manual, Darwish said.
Company officials couldn't be reached.
It's up to the company when to submit a revised study, he said. ODOT hasn't set a deadline.
St. George said a representative of the development company also called the township about putting a gas station on the front of the property.
"That only adds to the situation," St. George said.
When the project was discussed in early meetings, city officials had referred to a gas station and an upscale apartment complex near the proposed warehouse store.