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City Council Testimony on Traffic Safety Issues

  1. Sinclair Road issue
  2. General Street Safety Comments
  3. Coverage and responses to these comments
  4. How can you help?

On February 5, I commented on two issues before Council. The first comment was on a measure funding sidewalks on Sinclair Road, and the second comment was regarding safety issues in North Linden.

Sinclair Road issue

Here's the actual testimony:

This was my prepared comment:

My name is Ben Keith; I’m a commissioner and Zoning Committee Chair of the North Linden Area Commission. But to comment on the Sinclair Road sidewalks ordinance, I’m just here as a concerned member of the community.

I’m marked as opposed, but that’s kind of misleading. This project is better than the status quo, but it’s not good enough, and I hope that the City can make it better while still passing this funding ordinance.

Planning work for these improvements on Sinclair Road started in 2020.

In 2021, Columbus adopted its first Vision Zero policy, with the goal of achieving “zero fatalities and serious injuries from crashes on city streets.” Columbus said that “Speed is recognized and prioritized as the fundamental factor in crash severity”, and Columbus committed to building Complete Street Infrastructure, including separating pedestrians and bicyclists from cars.

In 2023, Columbus published the Vision Zero Action Plan 2.0, saying, “We commit to protecting lives above all else on our city transportation system.” The plan talked big about providing more separated bikeways, more complete streets, and more Shared-Use Paths.

If this city’s Vision Zero commitment to all road users was serious, why does this project propose sidewalks instead of shared-use paths, with no consideration for bikes or scooters on a 45mph road?

Your average bike or scooter rider cannot go 45mph. The safest thing for us to do is not ride in the road, but riding in the road is the only legal route that this project allows. Columbus City Code section 2173.10 bans riding bikes and scooters on sidewalks.

So we’re left with three options:

  1. Do the safe but illegal thing, and ride on the sidewalk.
  2. Do the legal thing by riding on the road, but risk life and limb.
  3. Or just don’t ride at all, and contribute to Columbus’ growing pollution and traffic problems.

None of those options are in keeping with Columbus’ Vision Zero goals or Columbus’ Climate Action Policy goals.

To fix this, I request that the City do three things:

  1. The Department of Public Service needs to revise this project to add a shared-use path on at least one side of Sinclair Road, connecting to the Morse Road bike lanes. I hope you can do that without delaying construction.
  2. City Council needs to repeal City Code section 2173.10, or at the very least amend that section to allow riding on the sidewalk in cases where the road is unsafe.
  3. Council needs to require Complete Streets policy compliance on all projects currently being designed, and on all future projects.

Thank you for your time.

General Street Safety Comments

There's no official video for this portion of my testimony, as Council turns off the cameras during the non-agenda comment period. Kyle Campbell posted this video of my testimony, and other advocates' testimony.

My prepared remarks:

My name is Ben Keith; I’m a commissioner and Zoning Committee Chair of the North Linden Area Commission. With the consent of Commission chair Carol Perkins, I’m here to testify on behalf of the North Linden Area Commission.

Last Tuesday, a bicyclist was killed while crossing Morse Road. Columbus Police Department's reportTo read this report, enter document ID 20243018382 in ODOT's Crash Report Retrieval site. didn’t identify the bike rider, but it determined that he was crossing at night, in the rain, in the middle of a block, without street lighting, five hundred feet from the nearest crosswalk, in the middle of a road that is ten lanes wide with a 45mph speed limit. Because of where he crossed, many people will say that his death was his own fault.

What is certain is that Morse Road is designed without thought for vulnerable road users like that poor man. We know this because putting a simple fence in the median would have been enough to direct him to the safe crossing at Stelzer Road. We know this because the bike lanes on Morse Road still don’t have protection.

Morse Road is not uniquely unsafe. When you look at ODOT’s crash records for the Linden area, from 2020 to 2022, they show that:

Now, the city has promised to, at some point in the future, install marked pedestrian crosswalks with flashing lights and beg buttons at certain locations on Cleveland Avenue. The construction schedule for these crosswalk improvements has slipped since they were first announced in 2022’s Walk Safe On Cleveland project. The improvements might be installed this year.

Our community has for years been asking Columbus to actually make meaningful safety improvements. The problem is that big projects like installing crosswalk flashers take years to complete. People die in the interim. The City refuses to even paint the crosswalks until they can install the flashing lights. While we wait for the lights, three more pedestrians have died on Cleveland Avenue since 2022.

We need quick-build solutions that can be deployed in days or weeks to improve safety.

I think there are three quick fixes that this Council could implement as early as next week to improve the traffic safety issues we see on these roads:

  1. Lower the speed limits on surface streets to 25mph. Cleveland Avenue from 71 to Morse Road has enough commercial properties that Council can designate Cleveland Avenue as a “business district”, just like you did for Downtown. In areas where there aren’t businesses, Columbus can designate those roads as not “through streets”, like Cleveland Heights did.
  2. Direct the Department of Public Service to change its crosswalk design memo. Change the default crosswalk marking from two skimpy stripes of paint that can’t be seen in the rain to the high-visibility ladder-style or continental-style markings, which state and federal guidance say are safer for everyone. Just adding paint will reduce driver speeds and improve pedestrian survivability.
  3. Direct the Department of Public Service to paint all the currently-unmarked crosswalks on 35mph roads like Cleveland Avenue, and to install temporary paint-and-bollard curb bump-outs wherever a crosswalk is hidden by street parking. This will require a bit of paint, but drivers will then know where to look out for pedestrians.

Those three simple changes, and a few week’s painting and sign swaps, would be a significant start towards actually achieving Columbus’ Vision Zero goals.

The fatal and serious injury pedestrian crashes on Cleveland Avenue that I referenced above:

ODOT Document Date Outcome Notes Location
20204091698 2020-01-12 Pedestrian severely injured crossing Cleveland Avenue at Northern Lights shopping center Report says “not in a crosswalk”, but there are several curb cuts in this stretch, and bus stops on either side of the street. 3518 Cleveland Avenue, Golden House Chinese Restaurant
20203029868 2020-02-21 Pedestrian in crosswalk on Hudson struck by hit-and-run driver headed across Cleveland. At signalized intersection with marked crosswalk.
ODOT plans intersection improvements here, consisting primarily of widening Cleveland Avenue, making it harder to cross.		 Hudson Street at Cleveland Avenue
20206170464 2020-08-10 Pedestrian severely injured crossing Cleveland Avenue at Dunbar Drive from the east to the west. There’s an unmarked crosswalk at this location with curb cuts, and the road was not lighted at the time. Cleveland Avenue and Dunbar Drive
20206149395 2020-08-26 Pedestrian fatally injured crossing Cleveland Avenue at Northern Lights shopping center Outside a crosswalk 3411 Cleveland Avenue
20203159256 2020-09-21 Pedestrian “darted out into the roadway” traffic in front of oncoming vehicle, outside an intersection There are curb cuts for a crosswalk at 26th Avenue, but the crosswalk is not painted. No improvements planned. Cleveland Avenue and 26th Avenue
20216102881 2021-06-12 Pedestrian severely injured crossing Cleveland Avenue Report claims pedestrian was intoxicated and not in a crosswalk. The point of crossing is between two bus stops.
An RRFB crosswalk with median island is planned at this location as part of future FCEO work in the Northern Lights area.		 3350 Cleveland Avenue
230837427 2023-11-07 Two children killed, mother and third child seriously injured when crossing Cleveland Avenue Report says “not in a crosswalk” but there are curb cuts establishing a crosswalk. Cleveland Avenue and 25th Avenue
20233214215 2023-11-23 Pedestrian fatally injured in a hit-and run Report says that the pedestrian was “illegally walking east across Cleveland Avenue in front of 1431 Cleveland Avenue. Due to [the pedestrian] not walking in a marked crosswalk,” the collision occurred. But there’s a curb cut on the east side of Cleveland Avenue here, so there’s an unmarked crosswalk. 1431 Cleveland Avenue

This data is sourced from news reports for 2023, ODOT’s Transportation Information Mapping System for 2020-2022, and ODOT’s Crash Report Retrieval site. My selection criteria in TIMS were a crash severity of 1 (fatal) or 2 ("Serious Injury Suspected") within Franklin County, exported by year, imported to QGIS, and then visually analyzed for location, with events further selected by having a "Unit Type" value greater than 20. The visual selection criteria were on Cleveland Avenue from I-71 to Morse Road, excluding events that happened in parking lots.

Coverage and responses to these comments

Transit Columbus led a letter-writing and turnout campaign, which resulted in City Council issuing a statement several days before the hearing:

Statement from Council President Shannon G. Hardin and Councilmember Lourdes Barroso de Padilla: We're saddened and frustrated by the recent deaths of pedestrians and cyclists in our City. Every life lost is one too many. We need to do better. The City has big plans to address these issues: Vision Zero which aims to eliminate traffic fatalities; LinkUS which will transform public transit; Bike Plus which will strengthen mobility infrastructure, and more. But we hear clearly from the community the need for solutions to the rising level of danger on our streets right now. Our residents deserve to feel safe and protected using any mode of transportation. We must prioritize the safety of our pedestrians and cyclists TODAY, not in the distant future. We will continue to work in partnership with the Department of Public Service, our Vision Zero partners, and our residents to build a safer, more accessible Columbus.
Columbus City Council tweeted statement from Council President Shannon G. Hardin and Councilmember Lourdes Barroso de Padilla on the recent deaths of pedestrians and cyclists in Columbus, February 1, 2024.

After the meeting:

Since October there have been 6 cyclist and pedestrian deaths on our streets including two children. Traffic violence has become acceptable where we see crashes as accidents and not the tragedies and acts of violence that they are...We need both infrastructure and culture change. We need to redesign, rethink, and rebuild our roads to make them safer for all users. - quote from Councilmember Lourdes Barroso de Padilla, posted underneath a photo of her in the Council chambers, looking serious.
Columbus City Council tweeted: "Tonight, Council heard suggestions from community advocates and activists on traffic safety. We appreciate their voices and remain committed to working with the community." February 5, 2024.

How can you help?

  1. If there are areas where you want to see a crosswalk marked, file a 311 request
  2. Write to your City Council members to ask them for safety improvements in your area, and include suggestions for specific fixes
  3. Provide comments on MORPC's proposed Complete Streets policy.
  4. Attend your local Area Commission meetings and push for improved street safety
  5. Sign up for Columbus' Bike Plus newsletter and give them feedback when they announce new plans
  6. Sign up for Columbus' Vision Zero newsletter (by "taking the pledge") and keep an eye on the Vision Zero website for future updates
  7. Donate money towards providing free bike lights to Columbus residents
  8. Follow Move Ohio, a state-level transit org.

If you want to receive notice of future group actions like this, good ways to do so include:

City Council Testimony on Traffic Safety Issues - February 5, 2024 - Ben Keith