OSU-N, COTC unveil new statue of Tubman
NEWARK – Celebrating Black history doesn't end after February.
The Ohio State University-newark and Central Ohio Technical College's latest addition to their Black History Month collection of art was unveiled as a statue of the iconic Harriet Tubman.
The statue, on loan to campus from the Gilbert Reese Family Foundation, wanted to honor the significance of Black artists and writers. The two colleges started a tradition of grand celebrations nearly 20 years ago. They hope to implement more murals, paintings and sculptures inside buildings to celebrate noteworthy Black people, according to COTC President John Berry.
Another aspect of the celebration is an annual Black History Gala, held this year via Zoom on February 25. Each year, students and faculty get together to plan and coordinate the gathering.
OSU has also recently established the Seed Fund for Racial Justice to address the historic and contemporary effects of racism and racial disparities found in all aspects of American society, according to OSU-N Dean Bill Macdonald.
Berry said that in the near future both locations will be hiring someone as Chief Diversity Officer, a new position for the campus to help lead antiracism initiatives.
“The campus is working hard to work with the community to fight racism. There are faculty, administration, students and staff all coming together to be actively anti-racist,” says Macdonald.
“OSU Newark's advisory board is very supportive, and we've collaborated with the Licking County NAACP. We're trying to stay as engaged as possible.”
Having zero traffic-related deaths or serious injuries in a major city is a lofty goal, but Mayor Andrew J. Ginther said Tueseday he believes it is a goal worth striving for in Columbus.
Standing in a parking lot at the intersection of James Road and East Livingston Avenue Tuesday morning, Ginther said the city’s Vision Zero Initiative will use data to identify the areas of Columbus and neighboring communities with the highest likelihood of traffic fatalities and work to resolve issues that could lead to serious crashes.
Among those changes are lowered speed limits in some areas, redesigning streets with all traffic — including pedestrians and cyclists — in mind, and working with the city’s suburban neighbors to address the problem.
The corridor of East Livingston Avenue between Nelson Avenue and James Road, which includes parts of Columbus and Bexley, will be one of the first targets of the action plan, which used analysis of traffic crash reports to identify city streets with high rates of fatal or serious crashes involving who officials call vulnerable road users, such as pedestrians, bicyclists and motorcyclists.
Columbus had 81 traffic deaths in 2020, according to Glenn Mcentyre, spokesman for the Department of Public Safety. There were 54 traffic fatalities in 2019 and 50 in 2018, according to the Vision Zero report.
So far in 2021, there have been 16 fatal crashes in Columbus, resulting in 18 people being killed. Four people were killed Monday in three separate crashes, including two in a crash involving a wrong-way driver, a pedestrian and a woman who was killed after her vehicle was struck following an unrelated noninjury crash.
The initiative plan notes that 65% of fatal or serious crashes happen on 10% of the city’s streets.
One of the streets that falls within that 10% is East Livingston Avenue, a street the cities of Columbus and Bexley have identified to address speeding issues and crashes, and even vehicles hitting homes, that have plagued Livingston between College Avenue and James Road.
Maria Cantrell, the coordinator for Vision Zero, said the data analyzed by the city showed Livingston Avenue as having one of the highest occurrences of crashes, especially with the corridor having homes, apartments, businesses, schools and public spaces along it.
The action plan shows most of the corridors, called high-injury networks, are in areas identified as “opportunity neighborhoods” by the city. Those areas include portions of the West Side, Linden and the East Side.
The joint effort will include engineering, safety and streetscape improvements to slow traffic and support other modes of travel along Livingston between Nelson and James roads.
Ginther said Livingston Avenue is often “like a speedway” and needs to be addressed.
“There are people who seek to avoid this area,” Ginther said. “But for some people, and for those who live here, they don’t have that choice.”
Bexley Mayor Gary Kessler, who was also at the Tuesday press conference, said public safety, including that of people in their homes, is a right and the improvements will help address the safety of everyone in an equitable way.
During the event Tuesday, a man who said he lived in the area interrupted Ginther and asked what is being done about all the violence occurring in the same area — including a portion of the city several blocks down the road that an internal Columbus police report found was the most dangerous area in the city in 2020.
“What about all these killings?” the man asked.
Ginther said he understands the public’s frustration, especially as they see investment in infrastructure as not directly addressing the continued spike of violence in Columbus. He said the city plans to announce additional investment in violence prevention and intervention in the coming weeks, but the issues do not have to be mutually exclusive from one another.
“The violence is important to address,” Ginther said. “But this is important too. It’s not more important, but it is both in combination.”
Vision Zero is based on a philosophy that Sweden developed in the late 1990s that seeks to change how traffic planners think about vehicle fatalities. That includes using data to understand traffic deaths while managing speed and setting a timeline to achieve zero traffic fatalities.
The plan was introduced to Columbus City Council on Monday, and the council plans to take it up for a vote at its March 8 meeting.
Residents can see the Vision Zeo Initiative action plan by going to columbus.gov/visionzero.
A virtual public hearing on the Vision Zero plan will be held at 5 p.m. Thursday. The hearing, to be hosted by Councilwoman Shayla Favor, who leads the Public Service and Transportation Committee, will be streamed live on CTV, the city’s Youtube page and Facebook page. Here is the link (Password: 12345). bbruner@dispatch.com @bethany_bruner mferench@dispatch.com @Markferenchik
So far in 2021, there have been 16 fatal crashes in Columbus, resulting in 18 people being killed.