MAYOR WANTS STREETS SAFER FOR PEDESTRIANS

Columbus Dispatch, The (OH) - July 10, 2002

Author: Mark Ferenchik; THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

For too long, city policies have focused more on moving traffic quickly than on pedestrian safety, Mayor Michael B. Coleman said
yesterday in announcing a broad range of plans aimed at making neighborhoods safer for walking.
"The city bureaucracy has been in place for over 60 years and focused more on cars than kids," Coleman said yesterday in front of
Windsor Academy in the South Linden neighborhood, close to the neighborhood where three boys have died since last August in traffic
incidents.
"The city has to change the way it does business."
Coleman said he wants to use $1.2 million from the city's next bond sale -- which he hopes will be this fall -- to install speed bumps, traffic
circles and other devices to slow drivers.
He said he also wants the city to buy additional radar-speed trailers, ease the process for neighborhoods to get stop signs and crack
down on drivers who speed through school zones.
James Reedus said he hopes the new measures work.
"This ain't nothing but freeway," said Reedus, 70, who lives on Dresden Street, across from Linden-McKinley High School.
"They (drivers) don't care if there's school or no school. They're running so fast they can't stop at the stop sign."
William Berry wants a four-way stop sign near his Myrtle Avenue home.
He said too many cars fly around the corner and down Myrtle.
His wife, Joan, said a speeding car crashed into a tree in front of their house 10 years ago.
"I've seen too much," she said.
Coleman said he wants to know what Linden residents want to do to make their neighborhood safer.
He said the city might convert some of the neighborhood's one-way streets to two-way in an effort to slow traffic.
A July 1 Dispatch story showed that more children are hit by cars in the North and South Linden communities than anywhere else in
Franklin County, and that the most dangerous street was a 1.5-mile stretch of Cleveland Avenue in South Linden.
Speeding and other traffic-related issues have topped the complaint list at community meetings Coleman and his staff have attended
since he took office 2 1/2 years ago. That, plus the deaths of two boys last August after a speeding driver hit them on Myrtle Avenue,
pushed pedestrian safety to the top of his agenda.
The mayor vowed to change the way city engineers determine which streets receive safety improvements, taking pedestrian injuries more
into account.
But changing traffic policies isn't easy.
For example, city traffic engineers and Columbus City Councilwoman Maryellen O'Shaughnessy have clashed over when speed limits
should be reduced.
City Transportation Director Pam Clawson said engineers don't want to be "arbitrary and capricious" because they have state and federal
rules to follow.
Still, she said she likes the new stop sign placement policy that is based on new federal guidelines and is more flexible than the state's.
She said the policy allows the city to use pedestrian figures when weighing options.
"This doesn't mean we're going to be randomly putting in stop signs," Clawson said.
"It allows us to use a little more judgment."

Coleman also is asking for more residents to volunteer as school crossing guards, and walk their children to school.
"No matter how much government focus we have, people need to slow down and follow the traffic laws," Coleman said.
Last month, 12-year-old Henry Kimbleton was killed when he darted out into Dresden Street in the Linden area to escape being squirted
by water from a garden hose.
The driver has been charged with aggravated vehicular homicide because police say he was drunk.
mferenchik@dispatch.com
Caption: PhotoFRED SQUILLANTE| DISPATCH Jordan Elliott Peace, 5, helps Mayor Michael B. Coleman pitch his safety plan for
neighborhood traffic. Memo: Coleman's plan
* Make speeding in school zones a fourth-degree felony with a fine of $250. Violators would face a mandatory 30-day jail sentence. The
infraction currently is a misdemeanor with a $100 fine.
* Make it easier for neighborhoods to obtain stop signs.
* Buy 10 new radar speed trailers.
* Allow the city to spend $350,000 to put speed bumps on Bolenhill, Sadridge and Weyant avenues; Ambleside, Alpine, Shanley and
Sunderland drives; and Stanburn Road and Franklin Park South.
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