5 More North Ridgeville Roundabouts? Bad Idea

When I moved to North Ridgeville in 2001, there were no roundabouts.

Shortly after we moved in, North Ridgeville, Ohio and Avon, Ohio jointly built a roundabout on Route 83 and Mills. That roundabout was a rousing success!

Have I ever seen any accidents there? Oh sure. The roundabout is on my path to work and, about once a week, I witness a near collision. My wife has witnessed cars going left on the roundabout, drivers going across the center bricks, and drivers stopping, and then backing away and turning around.

But, for the most part, it runs smoothly. There are bad drivers everywhere.

Shortly after the roundabout at 83 and Mills, North Ridgeville proposed 6 more roundabouts. Since then, 2 have been built and 4 more remain on the drawing board table. Should it have taken a decade to build those 2 additional roundabouts? Uh, no. In the city's defense, the roads weren't closed for a decade, the process took a decade.

Now, as Roundabout # 4 is currently stalled, many in the city question Mayor Corcoran. Why? This, according to Elyria Chronicle Telegram: "A Lorain County Probate jury has ordered the city of North Ridgeville to pay more than $700,000 to two brothers, property owners whose land was taken by eminent domain to build a roundabout in the city."

See, when you build a roundabout, you just don't close the road for 2 weeks, then viola, a new roundabout appears out of the air. First you have to get the land around the intersection, which almost always involves eminent domain, because, by design, roundabouts take up more land mass than an intersection. Then you have to move infrastructure, like electric lines and gas lines. Then you have to re-grade and re-purpose the area. Then, finally, you build the roundabout. That shady business pertaining to Roundabout # 4 should have put the kibash on Ridgeville Roundabouts.

But instead, earlier this week, Mayor Corcoran doubled down and announced he wanted to build 5 more roundabouts around the area of Interstate 480 and Lorain Road.

Listen, most of the roundabouts near my home exists due to safety concerns in the exurbs. They are built at the very edges of the city. I'm not saying tear them down, I'm saying roundabout-fever needs to end. The city doesn't need 12 roundabouts.

If the City Fathers were really worried about congestion, they could have limited development, but they had no interest in PREVENTING problems.

So I read the 46 page traffic study and have zero problems with the professionalism of the work that Woolport did. But I'm going to break down all 5 sections of the new proposed construction by color.

Great Idea: I'm not sure why Cypress Avenue wasn't built a decade ago. Whenever there's congestion, the best way to ease it is to add more alternate options. Detractors would say there would be AM issues on Lear if Cypress was built? You can restrict turning options anywhere.

So-so Idea: You can build a roundabout there, but for every problem you solve at that intersection, you create another problem. And eminent domain? I'm not sure you're not going to get a fight from every one of the four landowners at this corner. Design-wise, it's not bad. Have fun sitting in court for 10-15 years.

So-so Idea: The Cypress Roundabout and the Chestnut Ridge Roundabout are too close together. Again, there are going to be congestion backups due to the light at Lear and Lorain. But if you were a slick salesman, I could potentially be convinced that the 2 roundabouts on Lear would actually help traffic if Cypress was extended to Lorain.

Not a Great Idea: The Roundabout on Victory Lane would just be gratuitous. Yes, it would help the flow of traffic after Softball Tournaments and July 4th Fireworks, but again, is it worth the cost? The Lorain Community College Roundabout is more problematic. Since not much of the traffic that comes into North Ridgeville on 480 is from the West, that part would work fine. In the mornings, a roundabout for traffic entering 480 toward Cleveland would be perfect. Then why is it a bad idea?

Terrible Idea: You see that cute little roundabout? That's the part of the project that really f-, uh, messes everything up. Between 3 and 6 in the afternoon, that yellow roundabout will have to handle, arguably, more traffic than all but a handful of intersections on the West Side of Cleveland. You have to have a light there to control flow. No light means traffic backs up from the light at Lear and Lorain, through the orange roundabout, through the yellow roundabout, and onto the ramp. Once the roundabouts are jammed, you are screwed.

You cannot put a roundabout at the end of one of the busiest freeway off-ramps in the entire county. Even if the other 4 roundabouts work, the yellow one doesn't. (Then bleeds across the orange roundabout).

And the off-ramp traffic moving toward the orange roundabout has a big, giant curve to slow the flow of cars. Citizens flying off 480 and into the yellow roundabout will cause accidents at a higher clip than the accident rate at the light at Lear and Lorain. I cannot emphasize this enough, people will die at the yellow roundabout.

You think I'm using hyperbole? Just last year, a "turbo" roundabout was installed at a busy intersection in San Francisco and accidents QUADRUPLED over the year before. Not good optics for a design built for "safety."

With a price tag of over $30 million and construction spread across the years 2030 to 2034, the project will turn the south side of North Ridgeville into a parking lot for 5 years before we see the desired results. That's not me speculating, that's straight from the report.

Remember the Center Ridge widening in North Ridgeville? It took DOUBLE the projected time to finish. Then Mayor Gillock had the audacity to blame the cable company for the time overruns.

My counter-proposal? Listen, if people are really clamoring for this, (I don't think that they are), you do the red and blue roundabouts one summer, then the orange roundabouts the next summer. You don't do the yellow roundabout at all. The Green access road should have been done years ago.

But again, I am DONE with roundabouts. I want some sort of proof that my fellow residents are beating down the doors of City Hall demanding this.

I am going to throw this question out to you. If roundabouts are so great, why isn't every suburb in Cleveland building them? In Parma, where there are lights every 100 yards, why not build any there? Why isn't the population rising up and demanding roundabouts there?

I have never seen a groundswell of citizens demand a roundabout anywhere in the region.

You are picking apart my reply and note that I didn't even address the RCUT improvements at Lear and Lorain in Purple. Oh, I didn't forget about that.

Straight from the press release: 

Advantages

FHWA Proven Safety Countermeasure

Increases efficiency for all movements by reducing signal phases

Promotes access management

Disadvantages

U-Turn bulbs would cause moderate right of way and property impacts

U-Turn bulbs adjacent to signals/intersections may not be most efficient

U-Turn bulbs? Signal Phases?

You're going to need a pamphlet to drive in North Ridgeville.

You may be smart enough to navigate it.

I may be smart enough to navigate it. (Debatable)

The General Public, as a group, is going to have all kinds of problems.