Monroe is considering several ways to make U.S. Route 63 safer, including roundabouts. But many city residents aren’t keen on the idea.
Retired bus driver and Ohio Department of Transportation employee Mike Morris believes it could make the road more dangerous for truck drivers and surrounding vehicles.
“Think about it. Get a truck. He can't stop. He's doing 40. He's got an 80,000-pound load, and now he's going to whoop around a roundabout,” Morris said. “And you've seen it. How many people really know how to use a roundabout?”
Monroe officials presented several proposals to reduce car accidents and improve safety for pedestrians and drivers to residents Thursday night. The city was awarded $476,000 through the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Safe Streets and Roads for All program in 2024 to identify problems and solutions, with the goal of eventually reaching zero roadway fatalities.
Several other cities in the region have already gone through the process, including Franklin and Lebanon.
Monroe residents chime in
Morris thinks the city is “dreaming big.”
“[They] put it out there. ‘Let's see what sticks.’ Without just saying, ‘Maybe we really oughta look at this in the short term,’” Morris said.
Another resident, Winona Cox, says planning for a decade down the road isn’t soon enough. Cox pointed to one her friend caused a few years ago by turning east into a westbound lane at the corner of Heritage Green Drive and U.S. 63 — a location where consultants have proposed a roundabout.
“The sign, you do not see unless you look for it,” Cox said, suggesting a turn signal. “She was in a head-on crash. She was never the same again.”
Resident Brenda Milburn said she’s been in two serious accidents at the same intersection, most recently in August.
“I have some hardware screws and things in my fingers, and it's painful. And I can't bend my fingers yet, and I can't make a fist,” Milburn said. “To get back to being the driver that I was is going to take a while.”
Milburn also wants to see more immediate resolutions, such as flashing lights before intersections.
All three residents say industrial growth has made city roads more dangerous.
“That of course brings on semi-truck after semi-truck after semi-truck, and the traffic has gotten heavier,” Cox said.
Other cities provide insight
Franklin City Manager Jonathan Westendorf and Lebanon Mayor Mark Messer both said this kind of strategic planning is the best thing for a city facing growth to do.
“It outlasts the representation in the room,” Messer said. “And then no matter who you are, you can still execute on solid logic moving forward.”
Though traffic studies and expert opinions are important, Messer added input from residents was key to Lebanon’s planning process. Without that, Messer said: “You might have the brain, but you miss the heartbeat.”
Westendorf added it makes the plan more defensible, too, because the community informed every piece of it. Both said that provides justification for grant funding.
“There is not only statistical relevance, but there's actual people who came in on this process and actually shared lived experience,” Messer said.
Lebanon’s action plan identified 13 priority areas, and Messer said the city has already secured $5 million to address them. Franklin has received $3.2 million, which Westendorf said is important in a community of limited means.
“These projects do not get any cheaper at all. So you have to kind of incrementally work your way towards a long-term, better solution,” Westendorf said.
The study in Franklin showed roundabouts and other traffic calming tools are the best way to prevent traumatic injuries, he said.
“I'm going to have all these pedestrian strikes before that I believe very strongly, confidently are going to evaporate once we're done with these improvements. It's the only way,” Westendorf said.
He advises Monroe officials putting together their transportation plan to make information accessible. For example, Franklin created a website.
“We have to produce products that people can see and read and understand. It is not something that you can just say, ‘Hey, we did this report,’” Westendorf said. “People don't understand that. They don't believe it.”
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