A concrete curve, about eight feet wide, now blocks one of the southbound lanes of Military Road at its intersection with Fourth Avenue North. And while roads change throughout the city regularly, the new addition has caused a stir among Columbus residents.
The curve, which is currently unmarked by any signage, forces drivers to switch to the lefthand lane, instead of driving straight through the intersection. The addition caused concern for mayoral candidate Bill Strauss, who believes its sudden appearance in the last month may be “dangerous” and citizens “deserve an explanation.”
“My problem with it is, I think that it’s very dangerous for oncoming traffic,” Strauss said. “Maybe we’re judging it too fast because it’s not finished, and if I’m judging it too fast, then that’s my mistake. But I just don’t see how it could get much better.”
City Engineer Kevin Stafford said the addition is a chicane, a curve in the road designed to slow drivers through intersections.
Construction on the curve began in March as part of the citywide paving project, he said.
The chicane comes at an estimated cost of about $14,300 from the city’s internet use tax. The funds are discretionary, with each city councilman deciding the paving priorities for their ward.
Ward 5 Councilman Stephen Jones approached Stafford about the intersection two to three years ago, Jones said, after witnessing several accidents occur at the intersection over the years.
“I stay right up the road from (the intersection),” Jones said. “I’ve seen every accident that has happened there since I’ve been in office. … I asked our city engineer to look at how we can fix the problem there from people having accidents, and this is what they came up with.”
Columbus Police Department did not respond by press time with the number of accidents that have occurred at the intersection.
However, Stafford said the number of accidents on its own wasn’t significant enough to warrant a change in traffic flow.
Still, there was another issue. Upon investigating the site, Stafford observed an “obstruction of visibility” at the intersection for drivers headed eastbound on Fourth Avenue, which prevented them from seeing southbound drivers on Military Road.
“They’re having to stick the nose of their car out into the intersection in order to be able to see the oncoming traffic, and of course, at that point it’s too late,” Stafford said. “Either oncoming traffic has to slam on their brakes or swerve around the nose of the car. Obviously, it’s just not a safe situation.”
Stafford said Fourth Avenue’s stop bar, which is the painted white line before a stop sign, does not provide a “safe stopping sight distance” around the visual obstructions – a hillside, a house and a magnolia tree on the sides of Military Road.
Without removing these obstructions, Stafford said the least invasive and most cost-effective way to provide a safe stopping sight distance for vehicles would be the chicane, which both slows traffic and provides room to extend the stop bar.
Stafford said other solutions were discussed to solve the problem, like building a speed hump or placing a new stop sign before the intersection for southbound traffic on Military Road. Ultimately, Stafford said the traffic volume didn’t warrant adding a new stop sign, and a speed hump wouldn’t solve the issue of providing a safe stopping distance for drivers on Fourth Avenue to see around the corner.
Where’s the signage?
Stafford said contractors on the project will also place a sign lowering the speed limit from 35 to 20 mph ahead of the chicane, along with a warning sign for drivers. The chicane’s curb will be painted yellow, and the road will be striped to signal cars to veer left.
But for now, the chicane is marked only with traffic cones and barrels until the rest can be completed, Stafford said. Some residents are upset with the lack of signage.
“It’s visible from a distance, but if someone’s on their phone and they don’t expect it, because maybe they’ve driven that road for, like I have, for 40 years, and then all of a sudden something’s there that wasn’t there before. … There’s going to be a bad wreck there,” Strauss said. “There should be some advanced warning on it, just for safety, until it’s finished.”
Heather Ford, who lives on 12th Avenue North, said the signage should have been put up before construction began.
“The signage needed to be first, so that you were aware that something was going to come up,” Ford said. “Now I know it’s there, but still, you get in your car, and you’re used to going the same way every day … and then now, all of a sudden, that’s there. It takes a little while to make it into your muscle memory to remember that you’re going to have to get over. Not having that kind of signage there is a problem.”
Stafford said he agreed there should be a warning sign for construction placed ahead of the site, though that is the contractor’s responsibility.
“Trust me, I wish that would have been the process, but at the end of the day, the contractor chose the sequence,” Stafford said. “They have construction cones and should have construction ahead type signage, and they don’t.”
Falcon Contracting Company is the project contractor. Tony Gray, project manager and vice president of sales, could not be reached for comment by press time.
Stafford said he hopes construction of the chicane will be completed by the end of this month and hopes residents will become familiar with the change over time.
“I just tell people, give it little patience to get completed,” Stafford said. “I understand, people are used to flying through there. They don’t like change. They don’t want something to force them to slow down … It takes a little while to get used to.”
Jones said ultimately, safety is his main concern.
“If it stops one wreck, it will have served its purpose,” Jones said.
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