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In a roundabout way, officials debate idea for Warren square
The concept was introduced to Ohio in 2006.
By ED RUNYAN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
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WARREN — Jim Delasandro, executive director of the Main Street Warren organization, wants to make the downtown area more attractive to shoppers, diners and others.
He’s latched onto the concept of a roundabout — a 90- or 120-foot circular vehicle-traffic pattern that eliminates traffic lights — as a way to do that.
Putting roundabouts at all four corners of Courthouse Square would slow down traffic coming through the square, provide more parking spaces, beautify the area and improve traffic flow, advocates of roundabouts said at a meeting of Warren’s traffic and safety committee this week.
But Delasandro and other advocates ran into a buzz saw of opposition to the idea from Bill Totten, the city’s director of engineering, and Kathleen Rodi, transportation director for Eastgate Regional Council of Governments.
“If you came to us now, we would not look to move this forward,” said Rodi, whose organization is the local clearinghouse for federal funds that pay for such projects.
Rodi said chief among the reasons is that the four intersections are not considered unsafe and don’t provide a low level of service right now. Those are usually the criteria that get a project funded, she said.
Totten listed several additional reasons why he opposes tearing up the pavement, sidewalks and traffic signals at those four intersections and building roundabouts.
One is that the city spent about $50,000 each last summer at two of the intersections on Market Street to install decorative crosswalks that now would have to be removed.
Second, the city used $3.6 million in grant money in 2003 to upgrade 62 traffic lights in the city, including Courthouse Square, and those signals have a useful life for many years.
Thirdly, roundabouts would require changes to the sidewalks inside Courthouse Square, which would trigger an expensive type of environmental study, Totten said.
And fourth, there are fiber- optic underground wires running through those intersections that would cost “hundreds of thousands of dollars” to move.
“There is not an accident problem there,” Totten said, adding that $1.2 million in projects are planned for the Courthouse Square area in the next few years, including two more decorative crosswalks.
“What am I supposed to do — put these projects on hold while you study roundabouts? Personally, with all the improvements that have gone on ... this is not for the city of Warren.”
Speaking as a member of Main Street Warren was David DeChristofaro, Trumbull County engineer and former vice president of engineering and development for mall developer Cafaro Co., who touted roundabouts as a way to create a slow, steady traffic and provide 400 additional parking spaces to draw business downtown.
“It’s like right turn on red,” DeChristofaro said of driving through a roundabout, which requires drivers to merge at four different points around the circle but for those in the circle to proceed without stopping. Creating roundabouts would mean reducing traffic to one lane in each direction in and around each roundabout.
Availability of parking spaces is the No. 1 factor shoppers consider when deciding where to shop, DeChristofaro said, so increasing parking would increase commerce.
Because traffic near or in a roundabout isn’t motivated to speed up to beat a light, the area becomes safer for pedestrians, and that also would increase commerce, he said.
Roundabouts also reduce fuel consumption and travel times and reduce the number of accidents and fatalities, DeChristofaro said.
DeChristofaro is considering roundabouts for two intersections in Howland where East Market Street and Howland-Wilson Road intersect.
Rodi said there are no roundabouts in Trumbull or Mahoning county, though the circles in places such as Mecca Township are similar. The concept was introduced to Ohio in 2006 near Akron.
Funding has been approved for a roundabout at the intersection of Mathews and Sheridan roads in Boardman at a cost of around $1.2 million, Rodi said. The project is likely to be completed sometime after 2012, she said.
The roundabout in Boardman qualified for federal funding because there are a lot of vehicle accidents there, she noted.
runyan@vindy.com