Residents near the west side of Donner Park and drivers passing through the area will continue to see changes as part of a traffic calming study.
On Tuesday, the Board of Works approved a request to implement two temporary all-way stops. One will be located 19th and Franklin Street; the other will be at 19th and Lafayette Avenue.
“This will be a temporary approval until we can get some traffic data and bring a report back to you,” said executive director of public works/city engineer Dave Hayward. He estimated it will take about a month for the engineering department to return to the board with a recommendation.
Hayward wrote in a memo that the data received from the traffic calming study along 17th Street “has not been conclusive” and recommended that the study area be expanded to include 16th to 22nd Street, as well as Washington to Lafayette.
The city receives a number of complaints about speeding traffic on various streets and doesn’t currently have a “good tool” for slowing down drivers, he told the board. This is one of the things that they’re looking into with this project.
“We’re still trying to figure out what the best solutions are or what the solutions aren’t,” Hayward said.
While all-way stops are often requested, he noted that these are not necessarily effective for slowing down speeds after drivers pass the stop sign.
He wrote in a September memo that preliminary data from the project indicated that there was a “slight reduction” of vehicles’ speeds (about 2-3 mph) in the immediate area of the all-way stops. However, the effect was reduced as traffic got farther away, and there appeared to be no impact after two blocks.
“People are driving at the same speed they were before, if not faster,” Hayward told the board. He stated that they’re looking to examine “the neighborhood effect of having multiple stop sign locations” with this request.
Hayward also said that one “alarming” takeaway from the study is that traffic counts indicate that some drivers exhibit excessive speeds during early hours.
“Every time I counted the neighborhood overnight, usually in the wee hours of the morning, there was somebody that was driving 50, 60, 70 miles an hour on Franklin and on Lafayette,” he said.
The traffic calming project at 17th Street is a partnership between the city and Columbus Regional Health Healthy Communities. It is supported by a $6,000 Tactical Urbanism grant from the Indiana State Department of Health.
The project provides a chance for the city to “test the impact of the traffic calming design elements and collect further public feedback before making final design decisions for the street,” planning officials said.
The traffic calming project has seen multiple changes since its implementation. According to a memorandum from Hayward, the original installation was completed on Aug. 30. It included a traffic diverter at 17th and Washington, an all-way stop and traffic circle at 17th and Franklin, and an all-way stop at 17th and Lafayette.
The Board of Works later approved a request from city officials to remove the traffic circle at 17th and Franklin and install it at 17th and Lafayette.
Hayward stated in late September that the traffic circles and diverter would be removed on or before Oct. 1, the original end date for the experiment. However, he added that the city planned to leave the all-way stops in place indefinitely until the study’s completion.
