With severe traffic crashes remaining higher than a decade ago, Toledo-area transportation planners dedicated a revived annual conference Friday to projects designed primarily for safety — especially for vulnerable roadway users like cyclists and pedestrians.
“Even though we had a better year last year than we did in 2021, we’re still losing about 300 more people than we did in our best year,” said Michelle May, program manager for the Highway Safety Program at the Ohio Department of Transportation’s Office of Transportation and Economic Development.
Ms. May told the Toledo Metropolitan Area Council of Governments’ Transportation Summit — held at The Premier banquet hall on Heatherdowns Boulevard after a three-year, coronavirus-induced hiatus — that ODOT’s safety program now has $183 million devoted to safety-oriented projects.
She told an audience of scores of local officials and representatives of construction, engineering, and transportation-related companies that state safety funding goes beyond million-dollar projects ODOT itself undertakes.
The “safe system approach” the state has adopted, Ms. May said, emphasizes fatal and serious-injury crashes — rather than all crashes — and “proactive, equitable safety investments.” ODOT’s new priority rating formula for project development gives more weight to projects helping cyclists and pedestrians, particularly to those in impoverished areas, which have higher rates of “vulnerable user” crashes, injuries, and deaths.
While vehicles are increasingly designed to protect their occupants, she said, distracted driving is increasing with “mini-computers in the palms of our hands” and vehicle accessories that themselves are “a little more distracting.”
Since 2013, when Ohio’s traffic death toll bottomed out at 990 people, crash deaths have rebounded in the state, Ms. May said. Last year, 1,275 people died on Ohio’s roadways, with 1,356 such deaths the year before. And the nationwide death toll in 2021 of 46,270 was 21 percent higher than a decade before, she said.
For local projects costing less than $500,000 and not needing new right-of-way, Ms. May said, ODOT now accepts funding applications at any time. Communities qualifying under poverty thresholds are eligible for full state funding rather than having to pony up a standard 10 percent match.
“We want to think in terms of moving people, not traffic,” the state official said, later adding that over time and with sufficient funding, roadways can, among other things, be designed “to have self-enforcing speeds” thanks to features that induce drivers to slow down in areas where high speed is dangerous.
More expensive projects, costing up to $5 million, still generally require a 10 percent match, but that can be waived for high-poverty areas, Ms. May said. To qualify for safety funding, they generally need at least three crashes per year, with at least 30 percent causing injury.
ODOT also has established a “Systemic Application” funding stream that specifically targets areas where pedestrians are particularly vulnerable, or have a high rate of roadway-departure crashes.
Ms. May said that money is dedicated to arterial or major-collector roadways, while remedies typically include shoulder widening, rumble strips or new striping, “clear zone” clearing, and sidewalk or crosswalk improvements.
Earlier in the summit program, Christopher Waterfield, the district traffic engineer at ODOT’s Bowling Green office, outlined some upcoming safety projects on state drawing boards for metro Toledo.
Those include:
● Pending reconstructions of Cherry Street just east of Bancroft Street and Broadway Street near Western and South avenues;
● Addition of median islands on Monroe Street near Douglas Road and along Navarre Avenue in Oregon;
● New roundabouts at U.S. 20A at Strayer Road in Lucas County and U.S. 20 at State Rt. 109 in Fulton County,
● Enhanced crosswalks at five locations in Toledo, including along Broadway at the Toledo Zoo, Glendale Avenue at Swan Creek Metropark, and Front Street near Waite High School and Glass City Metropark,
● Modifications at Airport Highway’s intersections at Byrne Road in South Toledo and McCord and Perrysburg-Holland roads in Springfield Township. The Byrne project is under way while the McCord project is scheduled to start in June.
Mr. Waterfield’s remarks occurred during a panel discussion of various safety-enhancing strategies now in use.
Steve Atkinson, president of Toledo Bikes, said sometimes it only takes a change in signs. He cited an example of replacing advisory “Share the Road” signs with regulatory signs telling drivers “Bicycles May Use Full Lane” as a case study, noting as well that the latter allows vehicle drivers to pass a bicycle even in a no-passing zone.
Lt. Bradley Longo, commander of the Ohio State Highway Patrol’s Toledo post, said impairment and inattention now rank as his agency’s top concerns, with help likely from a new state law tightening Ohio’s distracted-driving rules for which a six-month warning period starts Tuesday.
Ohio’s current law makes texting or web surfing behind the wheel a secondary offense, meaning that such drivers could only be pulled over if they first committed a different moving violation. That will change Tuesday, the lieutenant said, although tickets will only be written starting Oct. 5.
And Abby Arnold, a Toledo deputy mayor, said the city is emphasizing a five-point approach to its Vision Zero traffic planning that has a zero-deaths goal for Toledo’s streets.
Those points, she said, are that deaths and severe injuries in traffic crashes are preventable; that human life and health should be prioritized in traffic planning; that human error is inevitable and must be accounted for; that changes to the roadway system can influence driver behavior, and that excessive speed is a principal traffic hazard.
First Published March 31, 2023, 10:50 p.m.
