MOUNT VERNON — The City of Mount Vernon has set March 13 as the day it will discuss its traffic studies and possible solutions with the residents in the area of Edgewood Road.
Mayor Richard Mavis said letters were sent out to Edgewood Road residents Wednesday notifying them of the public meeting, which will be held from 6:30 to 8 p.m. on March 13 in the third floor of the Knox County Memorial Building.
“We will have the information (to present to them), the traffic count, all those numbers,” Mavis said. “We have some other maps and that sort of thing that will be on display. We’re hoping that we get a good turnout. We have a lot of people interested in this project.”
One reason for the meeting is to bring ideas to the table, not only from city administration, but also from the community. “We want to have that opportunity to talk to people, to have input from people,” Mavis said.
It is a lengthy list of subjects that will be addressed at the public meeting.
“We’re going to be able to talk about everything they’re talking about – speed in the area, trucks in the area, just the number of cars in the area. All of those will be subject to discussion,” Mavis said.
“Some of the emails I’ve been getting said the city had already decided on some things. As a matter of fact, I don’t have an answer for it. If the issue is speed, we can have a presence for that, we can buy a device that will record your speed,” Mavis said He added that they are looking at speed bumps in critical locations. “There are several things we want to accomplish, but to say that we have a firm plan on that would not be correct. We do not have a firm plan.”
According to a traffic count, Mavis said, roughly 6,000 vehicles travel Edgewood Road in a day. “It’s a lot of traffic through a residential neighborhood. My guess it should level off now with Coshocton Avenue in better shape.”
He elaborated on the issue Coshocton Avenue caused for Edgewood Road. “People started going out High Street and over Edgewood when Coshocton had its congestion. Eastbound traffic is moving very well; we have not noted any congestion at this point. Some of those people will transition back to Coshocton, I think.”
There are still other things that need to be done, however.
Mavis said the State of Ohio will be replacing the traffic signal at Edgewood and Ohio 229, and will be putting up additional signage to emphasize no thru trucks traveling northbound. “There are already signs there,” Mavis conceded. “We will have additional signs there that will discouraged trucks from going there.”
One project they would like to resurrect, Mavis said, is a route that would direct traffic along the eastern part of the town and away from residential areas. “We looked at several years ago going out 229, across Eastern Star, and putting a road in that joins in with Upper Gilchrist,” said Mavis. “That’s another project that we’ve moved off the table and would like to resurrect. It was not well-received when we tried it a few years ago from the people who live in that area.
“It’s something we need to work on and something we can improve,” Mavis said. “I’m not sure it’s going to be a perfect situation – don’t know what that is – but we’ll keep working on it.”
Residents in the area of Edgewood Road presented a petition at a Mount Vernon City Council meeting in July 2017 asking that speed bumps be installed on Edgewood Road, East Chestnut Street, and a few other neighborhood streets. This was the third time the neighborhood signed such a petition.
In response, Mavis and City Engineer Brian Ball worked to find solutions cited by the Edgewood Road residents, such as the number of vehicles traveling over the posted 25 mph speed limit, the number of large trucks traveling the road, and the total number of vehicles using Edgewood Road as a cut-through between Ohio 229 and Coshocton Avenue. Ball placed traffic counters, which also record speed, throughout the Edgewood Road neighborhood. The city has also contacted GPS providers to ensure that Edgewood Road was not listed as a truck route.
Mavis and Ball have brought in Carpenter-Marty Transportation, an engineering consultant firm based in Columbus, to help review the maps and scope of work.
The city has reserved a room in the Knox County Memorial Building to share the information it has gathered as well as collect additional information from the Edgewood Road residents and surrounding neighborhood. The public meeting will be set up with four different workstations: maps of the area, comment cards, short-term measures, and long-term measures. The possible short-term measures included speed humps, speed tables, a speed radar sign, no truck signs, sign changes, traffic cameras, Neighborhood Watch, vegetative plantings, and fencing. Potential long-term solutions involved creating dead end streets, connecting to U.S. 36, road realignments, speed humps, sidewalks, bike trails, vegetative plantings, and fencing.
