Traffic Problems: Here are Some the City Will Fix

There is , city officials said.

But some smaller ones will get attention.

Residents flooded City Hall with complaints after Councilman at large Joe DeMio .

He and other council members made a list of the most common complaints and discussed them with city administrators, including Mayor Tom Perciak, Police Chief Charles Goss and City Engineer Ken Mikula Monday night. 

What will be done:

• Left turn lane into Costco -- The city plans to lengthen the lane where cars wait to turn left into the Plaza at SouthPark. The work will be done as soon as weather permits, the mayor said.

• Drake and Howe -- The under-the-road loop detector will be extended. Now, cars oftend don't pull up far enough to activate the left turn arrow from eastbound Drake turning onto Howe.

• Shurmer and Howe -- Motorists are complaining the left turn signal from Shurmer onto Howe isn't activating correctly. Mikula said he would check into whether it is functioning properly, but cautioned that the signal does favor Howe. "We're trying to make Howe a priority, so people turning left are going to have to wait a little longer," he said.

• Prospect and Route 82 -- Dotted white lines will be painted on the road to help keep traffic in the double left turn lanes in line. DeMio said vehicles sometimes veer into the other lane as they turn.

• Albion and Prospect -- A study is under way to determine how to let cars traveling south on Prospect made a left turn onto Albion without holding up traffic. Mikula said after the consultant makes a recommendation, the city will get a price estimate.

• Off-peak signal timing on Pearl -- Drivers say they find themselves waiting up to two minutes to turn onto Pearl Road from Echo or from the post office in the middle of the night, with no traffic. Mikula said he would check the signals, but said some of those problems were due to Pearl Road construction and have been rectified within the last few weeks.

• Albion and Pearl -- City officials will look into the timing of the light there, where motorists say they wait minutes to turn left in the middle of the night when there is no traffic on Pearl.

What won't be done:

• Right on red at Howe and Route 82 -- Don't look for those "no turn on red" signs on Howe to come down, even during non-peak hours when there is little traffic coming out of the Plaza at SouthPark. "You have so many lanes coming at you from the west, and the left turn lanes from Costco," Mikula said. "It's a safety issue."

• Howe and Pomeroy Place -- Even though there's a signal, a car turning left into Pomeroy Place can back up traffic during rush hour. It would take adding another lane, though, which is expensive and not likely to happen soon, officials said.

In a related matter, Mikula said the Ohio Department of Transportation is doing a safety study on Route 82 in the area of Howe and I-71. The city expects a report in May, and plans to apply for special safety funding in September to try to cut down on the number of crashes there.