Making Milan Road safer, more convenient

Sunday, 06 August 2006

By TOM JACKSON
tomjackson@sanduskyregister.com

If there are major arteries feeding the beating heart of Erie County's economy, U.S. 250 would be the aorta.

Tourists dominate the traffic on U.S. 250, which funnels visitors to Cedar Point and Castaway Bay. Erie County's two other waterparks, Kalahari and Great Wolf, are located on U.S. 250, and plans have been announced for two more to line the highway.

U.S. 250 also contributes to Perkins Township's growing importance as a local shopping destination. Sandusky Mall; big-box stores such as Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Kohls, Meijer and the new Target store; many of the county's restaurants; and many local hotels are all along that strip.

But interviews with local officials and a massive study paint a picture of U.S. 250, also known as Milan Road, as an ugly road with hard-to-read traffic signals, riddled with accidents and unnecessarily clogged with summer traffic.

"The way it looks right now, it's not pretty," said Erie County Commissioner Nancy McKeen.

The growth along the corridor and all of the signs which have sprouted up are not attractive, said McKeen, who said she's noticed how much nicer Hilton Head, S.C., looks for tourists driving in.

"Honestly, it doesn't bother me," McKeen said. "But for tourists coming in, we have to make it as attractive as possible and as safe as possible."

A $14 million construction project aims to turn U.S. 250 into the kind of commercial corridor Erie County needs -- although construction isn't scheduled to begin until 2013.

Officials have to wait until 2013 because that's when about $5 million of state Transportation Review Advisory Council money will become available, said Steve Poggiali, planner at the Erie Regional Planning Commission.

"They're booked up until then," he said.

It's too early to estimate how long construction will last, he said. "We probably won't know how long it's going to take until detailed plans are completed."

Statistics show U.S. 250 has a traffic accident problem.

In fact, it was the large number of crashes on U.S. 250 that inspired Ohio to look at improving the corridor.

According to a government crash analysis, the U.S. 250 Corridor (U.S. 250 north of Bogart Road) had more than 750 crashes from 2001-03. That amounts to 240-270 crashes every year.

Many of the crashes were linked to tourist traffic driving north on U.S. 250 in the morning and south on U.S. 250 during the afternoon. The study found 53 percent of the crashes were at intersections with signals and 55 percent were rear-end crashes.

The study had no trouble pinpointing the worst intersection on U.S. 250. The intersection at Strub Road had 85 crashes from 2001 to 2003, including 46 rear-end collisions.

Other intersections on U.S. 250's dishonor roll included Sandusky Mall's south entrance (50 crashes), at Ramada Street (34 crashes), Perkins Avenue (31 crashes) and the eastbound on and off lanes for Ohio 2 (31 crashes.)

Since the traffic study, Perkins Township has acted to make the Ramada intersection safer. Only right turns onto U.S. 250 are allowed from Ramada, and left turns are blocked by a small "island" of asphalt.

Perkins Township Police Chief Tim McClung said driver inattention is a major cause of rear-end collisions on U.S. 250. Guests naturally spend much of their time looking at the businesses along the road, he said.

"One of the biggest things we see out there is the car coming up behind somebody, slamming on their brakes," McClung said.

The blueprint for improving 250 is contained in a massive U.S. 250 Corridor study completed last year for Ohio Department of Transportation's District 3 office in Ashland.

The study says fixing U.S. 250's problems could cut intersection accidents in half and reduce accidents at other U.S. 250 locations by nearly one third.

To accomplish that goal, a series of steps would be carried out during the 2013 reconstruction of the corridor:

Fixing the signals

Traffic signals on U.S. 250 currently consist of signal lights which are dangled below a cable stretching across the highway.

Those signals are considered hard to read, particularly for tourists, said Carrie Whitaker, a transportation engineer at the Erie Regional Planning Commission.

The recommended design in the U.S. 250 study calls for scrapping overhanging wires and replacing them with signal poles, with arms to hold the signals. Back plates behind the signals would make them easier to read.

The report also says signals aren't timed well for summer traffic and should be adjusted.

Limited access

Many of the crashes on U.S. 250 are caused by allowing motorists to enter U.S. 250 in too many places, the study says.

The proposed design calls for removing many drives and providing more limited access. The plan has inspired many discussions with local merchants, who want to make it reasonably easy for tourists to stop by to shop or eat or purchase gas.

The plan also calls for building a new service road for Holiday Inn, Applebee's and other businesses on the west side of U.S. 250.

Police also want engineers to be careful when they limit access, McClung said.

The police chief said he understands the arguments for limiting access, but safety vehicles have to be able to get to emergencies.

"If you have one drive and it's blocked, how do you get in?" he asked.

Adding sidewalks

Sidewalks would stretch along large sections of U.S. 250.

Adding lanes

Lanes would be added at several intersections.

Money for the $14 million project comes from many of sources.

They include $5 million already offered by the Ohio Department of Transportation, $2 million of local road funds from the Metropolitan Planning Organization and $1.7 million of Erie County bed tax money allocated by the Sandusky-Erie County Convention and Visitors Bureau.

The $1.7 million has been informally agreed upon by the Erie County Commissioners and the visitor bureau. A written agreement is expected to be considered soon, said County Administrator Mike Bixler.

Much of the summer traffic on U.S. 250 is generated by Cedar Point. The amusement park didn't offer any money when planners let it be known they were looking for matching funds, but Cedar Point officials have helped in other ways, Poggiali said.

The other key piece of the financial pie is $5.3 million Erie County is seeking from the state's Transportation Review Advisory Council, said Poggiali, who put together and submitted the county's TRAC application earlier this year. Although approval for the money could go through this year, the money would likely not become available until 2013, Poggiali said.

Erie County hopes to hear word this fall that TRAC funding has been approved, Poggiali said.

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