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BAZETTA -- Township officials believe there will be no discussion in the near future to change the Ohio Department of Transportation's new four-way stop at what ODOT considers "a dangerous intersection."
ODOT turned a two-way stop at the intersection of state Route 305 and North Park Avenue extension into a four-way stop last week. Bazetta trustees have expressed dissatisfaction with the new signage at the intersection located between Champion and Bazetta townships.
"They're dead-set on this four-way stop and they really don't care what we think," Trustee Mike Hovis said Thursday. "It's just big government flexing its arms."
Hovis, a former Bazetta police chief, said the main issue is that traffic accidents at the intersection are "usually really bad ones."
"It is a bad intersection. But like anything else, you have to pay attention and be cautious. Evidently, they just took the number of accidents we've had and they felt that was enough, and they went with it," he said.
Justin Chesnic, public information officer for ODOT District 4, said his department's concern with "angle crashes" occurring at the intersection. Between 2018 and 2022, 13 crashes happened at the intersection, and nine of them were angle crashes.
"What that means is when somebody is driving through the intersection, and someone is failing to stop, then they end up hitting on an angle," Chesnic said. "Those typically can lead to some pretty serious incidents. Of those nine angle crashes, four of them involved injuries of people. When we start dealing with injury crashes, then we need to figure out what we can do to stop having such serious crashes."
Some residents have suggested other alternatives such as a traffic signal or blinking lights to aid the former two-way stop incidents, but Chesnic said the traffic counts do not warrant traffic signals.
"There's just not enough traffic," Chesnic added. "State Route 305 has about 3,600 vehicles a day, and then North Park Avenue has significantly less."
"I know from talking to them, they're just not going to change," Hovis said. "It is what it is. We're just going to have to change people's driving behaviors. When you live in that area and you're used to how you drive through there, and then they change it, you have to change your driving behaviors. It's just as simple as that."
In April, ODOT District 4 released its scheduled construction guide for 2024, which featured larger projects across Mahoning and Trumbull counties. Less expensive plans, for less traveled routes, such as the Route 305 and North Park Avenue intersection, were not included.
When speaking about residents questioning the new four-way stop, Chesnic said, "Typically we don't get too much outreach from the community on things like this. Once we do something like this, we may get someone with a question or two. But typically when we study these intersections and there's an area where we notice an increase in crashes, or an increase in serious crashes, then we look at what kind of safety countermeasures we can use to prevent those from happening."
Sometimes, Chesnic said, if the road has a larger volume or massive amount of traffic, roundabouts or R-cuts could be other solutions. He also mentioned, "what we're doing is what we feel is appropriate that will reduce this amount of angle crashes."
"We do this all throughout the district," Chesnic said. "There's other intersections where we've done this, where there are serious crashes, and they decline pretty drastically whenever we add a four-way stop."
FOUR-WAY ADVICE
Stan Shrodek of Warren gave public comments during the last trustees meeting, saying the four-way stop is "kind of ridiculous."
"If you look at it, there's a red light at Bazetta Road and the next one is on Route 45," Shrodek said. "If you're going to control traffic, then why don't you put a red light there? It would make more sense. Otherwise it's crazy, and yes, it is a very (bad) intersection."
Shrodek continued, "If you want to control traffic, people aren't going to stop for that (stop sign). I would prefer to have a traffic light, it would make more sense and you would have everything there. You would have the power there, and the only thing you would have to do is use a control system. You don't have to add anticipators, they can just put everything on a very simple timer and just let it go."
Trustee Bob McBride said "I'm afraid that people will come down there on their cellphones, and they'll drive right through it because they'll be on their phones."
McBride continued, "It's not us, it's the state. Randy Smith is addressing that right now. We're gathering accident reports and we're getting them from the Ohio State Highway Patrol also if they have any. I've been in contact with them about four times about it, so it's getting addressed. We don't really want the four-way stop."
Shrodek suggested that an increased police presence in the area of the intersection may deter drivers from habitually committing traffic infractions.
"On the flip side, you guys are doing a good job," Shrodek said. "I haven't been to a trustee meeting in months to complain. I've got nothing to complain about, it's great. We're getting patches in the road, happiness with the fire department, and I see the police patrolling where we're at. We can't ask for anything more, thank you."
Trumbull County Engineer Randy Smith noted Friday that his department heard some concerns from Champion and Bazetta, and their respective police departments.
"I reached out to ODOT and I received all of their study information and their review as to why they think the intersection will be safer today than it was prior to," Smith said. "They forwarded that information to me, and I got it to the (police) chief's of Champion and Bazetta for their review, and ODOT said they would be more than willing to meet to discuss it in the future, if there were still outstanding questions with the new arrangement."
Smith included that, from his understanding, both police Chief Larry Skaggs of Champion and police Chief Chris Herlinger of Bazetta, along with their township trustees, had some additional concerns that the four-way stop may not be the best improvement for the location. Skaggs and Herlinger were unavailable for comment.
"ODOT did quite a bit of extensive research and wanted to provide us with that information for review," Smith said. "And I got it to the respective chiefs, and I haven't heard back, now that they've had a chance to look at it."
From an engineer's perspective, Smith concluded that since ODOT has researched extensively and proceeded with numbers, his opinion on their efforts depends on the consistency of the state's review.
"I mean they looked right at the time of day they were going to put it into effect, how they were putting it into effect, and all of the signage and so forth," Smith said. "So certainly they took a lot of steps to look out for the public's safety in moving this forward. They did provide us with accident history over the last several years and how, from an engineering standpoint, the four-way stop will reduce that.
There's no question, the state put a lot of review into that intersection, so I'm not sure anyone is really debating that from an engineering standpoint."
It was estimated by Smith that the intersection once had a traffic signal about 30 to 40 years ago.
"But we're not able to confirm that, so I guess we're going to see how this functions," he said.