Springfield Road Redesign
The City of Riverside, Ohio, is planning on a major road change in the late part of 2020, and continuing into 2022. The project will change the existing 4 lane roadway with 2 lanes of travel in both dirctions, to a 3 lane road with 1 lane of travel in both directions, a center turn lane, and bike lanes in both directions. The overall cost currently quoted on Riverside's web page, is $5.9 million dollars, with Riverside on the hook for $3.2 million of that amount.
East of Harshmann Road
The plan is to first modify the roadway on the east side of Harshmann Road, to the Wright Patterson Air Force Base entrance. Here is the description from the City of Riverside: This project consists of milling and resurfacing East Springfield Street from Harshman Avenue to the East City Corporation Line. Pavement repairs, some storm sewer replacement and curb replacement in included. Also includes new street lighting and upgraded traffic signals. The number of lanes will be reduced from 4 to three with the addition of bike lanes from Harshman Avenue to Centennal Blvd. Plans are under design and right of way is being acquired. Construction is to begin late 2020. Cost of the project is $3.6 million. Surface Transportation Program Funds of $912,000 have been secured. Riverside is responsible for the remaining $2,718,000.
Therefore, on that section of Springfield Street, there will be more through lanes of bicycle lanes (including the Dayton MetroParks bike path that can be taken west to Riverscape in downtown Dayton, and then east into Fairborn), than car lines, even though the ratio of cars to bicycles on that road are much, much larger. Also, they are upgrading traffic signals, of which there are 3 sets, Harshmann Road, Air Force Museum, and Wright Patterson Air Force Base.
They are also installing a dedicated center turn lane. For the entire length of that road, approximately 1 mile, there are 2 south side entrances, and 3 north side entrances (4 if you include the parking lot across from Wright Patterson Air Force Base.) The majority of that center turn lane will not be used. This isn't a 1 mile residential road with numerous side streets that have a lot of required left turns, but somewhat of a limited access roadway.
West of Harshmann Road
The second phase of the project is on the west side of Springfield Street from Harshmann Road west to Northcliff Drive. This phase is approximately three-quarters of a mile, and will include the lane reduction, road infrastructure changes, and updated traffic signals. This is the city's description : This project consists of milling and resurfacing West Springfield Street from Northcliff Street to Old Harshman Road. Pavement repairs, some storm sewer replacement and curb replacement in included. Also includes new street lighting and upgraded traffic signals. The number of lanes will be reduced from 4 to three with the addition of bike lanes. Plans are under design and right of way will be acquired soon. Construction is to begin in early 2022. Cost of the project is $2.3 million. Surface Transportation Program Funds of $1.8 million have been secured. Riverside is responsible for the remaining $490,000.
They are planning for updated traffic signals. The number of intersections with traffic signals is 1. That traffic signal for the first part of 2019 was messed up allowing for cars to wait for 20 seconds while no cars travelling west on Springfield were going south on Harshmann. It was until the power went out due to the tornado storm on Memorial Day, that the traffic light reset itself back to normal useful operation.
They will again be modifying the road to have a center turn lane and bike lanes, and though there is residential area on the south side of Springfield Street that could benefit from the turn lane, there is 4 nortbound entrances, with 2 being for an area with very limited traffic, 1 for a church, and 1 for a Montgomery County building.
As for the bike lanes, I realize this is a 'Field of Dreams' concept. If we build these bike lanes, it will make things safer for them to travel on the roadway. Of course, the amount of bikes that travel on that roadway are very limited now, and probably won't be for residents of Riverside. There are no economic destinations on Springfield Street for bicyclists that are residents of the neighborhood south of Springfield Street to access on that entire length of Springfield Street. Also, I'm concerned that the maintenance department will either not keep up with the cleanliness of the bike lanes, or be spending labor and machine money on keeping it clean. Why is that an issue? If the bike lanes are not clear of debris or snow, the bicyclists will drive in the bike lane, further slowing down existing travel, because cars will now be passing in the dedicated center turn lane, which could then cause head on accidents.
Proponents of lane reductions, also called "road diets", state that accidents are reduced, as is the speed of travel. I can agree with that. If you lessen the amount of roadway that exists, traffic will slow down because cars cannot pass, and because you can't drive side-by-side, those types of accidents will not occur. The question becomes, how many accidents occur on Springfield Street that are related to the types of accidents that would be reduced?
What about traffic heading into Wright Patterson Air Force Base? In the mornings, the line came currently back up to the Air Force museum entrance. In doing so, noone can legally pass them to continue without entering Wright Patterson Air Force Base. (Center turn lanes are not legal travel lanes.) Therefore, traffic will be backed up, unnecessarily, because people can't get to their destination.
I seem to be preaching about east-west movement through Riverside. If you look at the primary roadways in Riverside, you have 1 north-south route, which is Woodman/Harshmann road. That makes it easy to look at the east-west roadways, which there are 7. 2 of those are highways, State Route 4, and United States Route 35. Of the other 5, 3 of those are already 2 lane roadways, Valley Pike, Burkhardt Road and Linden Avenue. (Though, Linden Avenue is 4 lanes for approximately three-quarters of a mile around the intersection with Woodman Avenue. The remaining 2 roads are Springfield Street and Airway Road. With this project Springfield Street will be reduced to a 2 lane road, and therefore Airway Road will be the only non-highway roadway in the city of Riverside to have 4 lanes in east-west travel.
Also in the descriptions, they talk about obtaining right of way. Usually in road diets, you don't need to obtain right of way, because you already have it in the 1 lane of car travel that you are converting to bike lanes. How much is being spent on right of way, needlessly?
Final Comments
So, yes, I am opposed to the Springfield Street modification. And, yes, I am not a traffic engineer, but I am a concerned citizen who believes $6 million dollars can be spend more usefully in this city. The question would be, how much of the $6 million dollars is to be used for things other than repaving the road? I am all for repaving Springfield Street with this money, it surely needs it on the east side of Harshmann, but spending that kind of money for Dayton residents to bicycle to work at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, to me, is not fiscally responsible for Riverside citizen's money.
Feel free to share your opinion with me, and I can add it to this site. If you are interested in signing a petition for either side, I would be interested in collection signatures, and delivering them to the city to show support or opposition.