Paving the way for opinions

ODOT welcomes formal comments on project to reduce lanes on section of Route 20

Ohio Department of Transportation District 12 emphasized that it will consider the opinions of everyone who wants to formally express their views about a proposal to reduce the number of lanes on a part of Route 20 in Madison Township.

ODOT District 12 Public Information Officer Brent Kovacs responded on March 5 to reaction

about the state transportation agency’s plans to reconstruct and reconfigure Route 20 between Route 528 and County Line Road in eastern Madison Township.

Currently, Route 20 from Route 528 to County Line Road is comprised of two eastbound and two westbound lanes. ODOT plans to transform that part into a three-lane highway — consisting of an eastbound and westbound lane along with a center lane allowing left turns in both directions.

Township trustees have promised to work diligently to convince ODOT to keep the four-lane format of Route 20 between Route 528 and County Line Road. Trustees also enlisted the help of Lake County commissioners, who recently approved a resolution expressing their opposition to the lane-reduction.

In addition, Trustee Kenneth Gauntner Jr. appealed to the community’s residents and other interested citizens to join the fight by writing letters to ODOT. Kovacs said ODOT welcomes comments about the project from everyone.

“We’ll take them all seriously and add them to (the information and data) we consider in making a final recommendation,” he said.

In fact, Kovacs said people desiring to comment on the project can express their views through a feature available on ODOT’s website, transportation. ohio.gov, under ODOT Projects.

ODOT will review public comments in conjunction with its analysis of a recently completed traffic study on the section of Route 20 between Route 528 and County Line Road.

“Once we have all feedback and a final recommendation after analyzing the traffic study, we’ll select a preferred plan,” Kovacs said.

He anticipates that a final plan will be chosen this spring for resurfacing, restriping and reconfiguring Route 20 between Route 528 and County Line Road.

ODOT’s website states that the project is scheduled to begin in spring of 2021 and be completed during the fall of the same year.

If the reconfiguration takes place, it would match a section of Route 20 directly to the east of County Line Road in Geneva Township, stretching to Geneva city limits, which ODOT reduced to three lanes from four in 2018.

Although the proposed Madison Township project would create a uniform traffic pattern on a longer stretch of highway, Gauntner said the three-lane setup is not well-suited for Route 20 between Route 528 and County Line Road in his community.

He said there are a lot more businesses along Route 20 in that stretch of Madison Township than there are in the section of Geneva Township directly to the east.

Furthermore, he said the same section of Madison Township is filled with many homes, occupied by people who drive Route 20 regularly.

“The fact is, when you think about Madison Township between Route 528 and County Line Road, probably a quarter of our population lives between 528 and County Line Road, and those people every day come up Bennett Road, Dock Road, County Line Road, they need to go west to work, east to work (on Route 20),” he said.

In comparison, Gauntner said the portion of Route 20 in Geneva Township, heading toward downtown Geneva, has fewer homes.

“There’s not that many people in Geneva Township, north of 20, between County Line and Padanarum Road, (and going east toward) Route 534, because it’s mostly farmland, or Geneva State Park land,” Gauntner said.

Gauntner also said that Route 20 between Route 528 and County Line Road, with its current four-lane configuration, already is, statistically, “a very safe stretch of roadway.” He obtained crash statistics for that area from the township Police Department which he said prove his point.

Kovacs, however, said March 5 that reducing Route 20 between Route 528 and County Line Road to three lanes from four will make that stretch even safer and easier to travel in a few key ways.

First, he said having three lanes versus four will reduce “conflict points” on this section of highway that can lead to crashes.

Conflict points are areas at intersection or on highways where vehicle paths merge, diverge or cross, and create the potential for collisions between vehicles.

With the new three-lane road, drivers, if they obey the law, would stay in one lane for each direction of travel and only use the center lane to make left-hand turns. Kovacs said in the three-lane format, cars won’t be shifting in and out lanes as much as when there were two lanes in each direction — increasing the possibility of more collisions. Hopefully, all cars also will stay at a more consistent speed in one lane of traffic for each direction, he added.

“Any time there could be the potential for crashes, by reducing conflict points, there should be an improvement in safety,” he said.

In a previous interview, Kovacs also said the project targeting Route 20 between Route 528 and County Line Road, once completed, will provide wider lanes for motorists.

“Currently the lanes along U.S. 20 are narrow,” he said. “If you look at one lane on the current fourlane section compared to one lane on the three-lane section of road (coming to Madison Township), one lane on the three-lane section of road will be wider.”

During the March 5 interview, Kovacs said the reconfigured three-lane highway also will add 4-foot paved shoulders to each side of the road in the project area. He said this will make the portion of Route 20 safer for pedestrians and bicyclists, as well as cars that have to pull off the side of the road.

In addition, Kovacs said the new three-lane section of Route 20, with the addition of paved shoulders, ought to make it easier for emergency vehicles to proceed to their calls, compared with a four-lane highway when traffic is filling all lanes.

“(On the three-lane road), cars (in either the westbound or eastbound lanes) should be able to move over to the right and give emergency vehicles plenty of room to get through,” he said.