9/4/2018 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of 9-4-2018 Mr. Tallon said it took him almost 45 minutes to get home today from his third shift job in North Ridgeville. He said he encountered standstill traffic on Lorain Road at the intersection with Stearns. He said that was at 7:56 a.m. Mr. Tallon said by the time he hit North Olmsted Park it was already 8:26 a.m. He said he diverted off of Lorain road and went behind the Metro Parks to Dover Center Road by Giant Eagle. He said he again hit standstill traffic for almost 15 minutes. By the time he left work at 7:50 a.m., he did not get to his front door until 8:40 in the morning. He said the High School opened today and he expected there would be some issues with the first day. Mr. Tallon said his concern was the safety issue this morning. He said the middle school had to be there by 7:45 a.m. and the high schools by 8:15 a.m. At 8:30 a.m. there were still kids in their cars trying to get to the school building. He said they were jumping out of their cars and running down Dover Center road to try to get to school. He said it happened on Dover, Butternut and Lorain from as far as KFC. He said this caused even more of a back up and was a safety issue for the kids. Mr. Tallon said he did not see a visible police presence anywhere on Lorain, Dover Center and Butternut Ridge. He also said there were no crossing guards on Butternut Ridge or Dover Center. He said he sat at that traffic light for almost five or six minutes and did not see any crossing guards or police. Everyone was just waiting on the traffic lights. He said the other issue was the two potential accidents he had to avoid on the way home. Because of the backup on Butternut there was such traffic on Fitch Road, cars were pulling into the other lane to try to divert to Fitch or Revere to get their kids to school. Mr. Tallon said he had to slam on his brakes for a car that had pulled on to the other side of Butternut to quickly pull a U -Turn into Revere Drive. With the new turn lane, the lanes got smaller. He said another issue is because of the turn lane the traffic backs up in front of Revere Drive. He said you can't turn left out of Revere, but there is no enforcement to that so the parents trying to drop their kids off are now turning left and backing up Revere Drive. He said he understands there is going to be an adjustment period with the new school, but he was surprised that there were no crossing guards or police presence. Councilman Limpert asked Director Glauner about the initial review of the school plans and traffic patterns on Revere. He said we talked about the no left turn there and having a police presence early on to help enforce that. Can this be looked into as this was a point brought up a few times? Director Glauner said there were two officers assigned there this morning and he knew they were there because he heard them on the radio. He does not know where they were positioned, but he knew there was a problem because that back driveway isn't completed yet. He said he will talk with Captain Cox and ask to have a couple more officers in that area. But there were two officers to try to help there. The change in traffic pattern is causing some of the problem, but he thinks it's just going to be a learning curve and today was a bigger hold up because kids weren't just getting out with their lunch and going into the school. They had to bring all their supplies and everything today. He said hopefully that will stop in the next day or so and people will learn the new traffic pattern. Mr. Tallon said he was sitting at that light for about six minutes and there were no visible uniforms or squad car. If there was a crossing guard, there was no one in uniform. 7