BLUFFTON — A public meeting was held in Bluffton to collect input on a possible project on state Route 103 on the east side of the village.
Choice One Engineering of Sidney facilitated the public meeting to get public comments to prepare a study for the possible project. That edge of town has seen considerable growth in fast-food and industrial businesses in the corridor. As a result, there has been an uptick in congestion, safety, access management concerns. The village would like to improve traffic operations and access along the corridor to allow the village to grow and still meet safety concerns. Choice One engineer Craig Eley said there have been 30 crashes along the corridor in the last three years, including six injury crashes.
The Ohio Department of Transportation is funding about $50,000 of the $58,000 cost of the corridor study.
“This particular corridor has been identified by ODOT with a high risk rural road designation,” Eley said.
Possible solutions in the study would include adding turn lanes, increasing lighting and adding sidewalks to improve safety for pedestrians and bicyclists in the area. Eley said all those possibilities would be looked at because the majority of the accidents on the corridor were rear-end crashes. Adding access roads will also be looked at during the study.
Mayor Judy Augsberger said the idea to look at improving the corridor first began being discussed in the 1980s and the current interest was as a result of the village’s Transportation Plan and Community Vision Report.
“People walk and ride bikes that way and there are no sidewalks,” Augsberger said. “I have seen people in wheel chairs.”
Augsberger said the village’s ultimate goal is to address safety and access issues in the hopes of creating new business in the corridor.
An early estimate for the cost of the project was said to be $2 million, but that number had a wide range depending on the final scope of the project if village officials move forward after the study. Choice One asked for people to deliver comments up to Sept. 28 for the study. They plan to release their finding in December. The study would then be forwarded to ODOT for approval.
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