South Lorain residents continue call for improved intersections

LORAIN — A crash that left two girls injured has spurred a councilman's call to revisit traffic signals on Lorain's south side. Shortly after 3 p.m. Aug. 24 Lorain police responded to East 31st Street and Clinton Avenue for a vehicle that struck two pedestrians. The pedestrians, girls ages 6 and 10, were walking on the sidewalk on Clinton Avenue, crossing East 31st Street, when they were struck by a maroon Honda Pilot traveling west on East 31st Street, according to the police report obtained by The Chronicle-Telegram. A neighbor, Tony Padilla, showed security camera footage of the crash to Lorain police and a Chronicle-Telegram reporter. In the video, two girls are seen crossing East 31st Street to the north. When they are about halfway across the street, screeching tires can be heard and then a maroon car enters the frame, traveling west through the Clinton Avenue intersection. One girl attempts to leap out of the way but is struck and thrown back toward the south, landing near the south curb of East 31st. There is a pause after the crash, then she starts screaming. The second girl is hit at the center of the car's bumper, and she is immediately thrown a significant distance through the air. The girl thrown further appears to be knocked unconscious. The girls' brother ran into the road and picked the unconscious child up and carried her to the grass. "She was like a little rag doll," Padilla said on Tuesday. Padilla said the girls had been holding hands and walking in front of their older brother when they crossed the roadway. According to the police report, the driver, Romondo Duncan, 57, of Elyria, told police the girls "darted out into the roadway" in front of his car. Another witness statement disputed that characterization, alleging Duncan was traveling at a high rate of speed. Police Sgt. Thomas Orlosky noted he spoke with the girls' father, who said one of the girls had a broken nose and was released from the hospital. The other girl had a head laceration that required staples, along with several scrapes and cuts, and was admitted overnight for treatment. According to the police report, both girls were taken by LifeCare to University Hospitals Elyria Medical Center. Charges have not been filed against Duncan in Lorain Municipal Court. On Monday, city workers placed additional stop signs on East 31st Street, turning the intersection into a four-way stop. On Tuesday, flashing lights were taken from the stop signs at Tacoma Avenue and East 31st Street and added to the new signs at Clinton Avenue and East 31st. Safety/Service Director Rey Carrion said the stop signs did not cost the city anything, as it's Public Properties Department. But even with the flashing lights, cars continued to barrel through the intersection. Padilla and his neighbor, Deanna Kniceley, have watched cars speed through the intersection for years. After the stop signs were put up Monday, Kniceley counted about 20 cars roll through the stop within a half-hour that evening. "I know it's going to take a little while to get used to it, but people need to pay attention," she said. On Tuesday, they talked with Arroyo about the intersection and the need for better crosswalks and improvements on the south side — while yelling at the cars that failed to stop at the newly minted signs. Kniceley remembered when the traffic light was removed in 2016 and how the safety of the intersection changed. "Ever since they took out this light, I've called every councilman (for the 6th Ward)," she said. "... I was against it from day one." A 2015 traffic signal study prompted the removal of a host of traffic lights along East 31st Street and other thoroughfares in the city. The study, performed by AECOM, completed two phases of signal studies, one in 2013 that focused on the Broadway corridor, and the second in 2015 on the city at large. Its findings included 39 intersections that did not warrant traffic signals and instead be replaced by stop signs — including seven intersections along East 31st Street. The study predicted the city would save about $55,000 per year by removing those 39 intersections, a move Arroyo opposed during his first stint on City Council, and has brought up again in his current term. While appreciative of the stop signs added at Clinton Avenue, Arroyo plans to push for the potential return of traffic lights there, and at East 31st Street and Palm Avenue — near Palm Elementary School — and East 28th Street and Pearl Avenue. Arroyo wants to see a light at East 28th Street and Pearl Avenue in part to help make it safer to motorists to turn left from Pearl onto East 28th. The next closest intersection with a traffic signal is at Fulton Road and East 28th Street, nearly a mile down the road. Adding in three traffic lights could cost an estimated $750,000 according to a signal presentation to City Council from March. Arroyo and residents also wanted to see better crosswalks at East 31st Street and Oakdale Avenue heading into Oakwood Park. Martin Leibas agreed with the need for better crosswalks at Oakdale Avenue, as he and his wife, Carmen, often walk to the park from their south side home and cross at that intersection. Padilla had watched as city workers installed the stop signs, and as staff from the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency installed a temporary camera to capture the traffic in the intersection. On Tuesday evening, Sam Schweikert, a planner with NOACA, came to check on the camera while Arroyo and the neighbors were at the intersection. Schweikert said the temporary camera is part of the South Lorain Transportation for Livable Communities study. In 2020, the city received $100,000 to focus on the East 28th Street corridor, which stretches to the roadways bordering Oakwood Park, to develop transportation projects that make the area more commutable to pedestrians, cyclists and motorists, and support economic development. Schweikert installed another temporary camera on East 28th Street near the Steel City Lounge. The cameras record speed and traffic data, including the number of pedestrians and cyclists passing through the intersection. In an email to The Chronicle-Telegram, Orlosky stated there have been 133 reported crashes at intersections along East 31st Street over the past five years, with the roadway averaging about 26 crashes per year. Of those, 54 were listed as "injury crashes," which include serious, minor or possible injury crashes. Orlosky noted during that same time period, Lorain police cataloged a total of 5,568 crashes throughout the city — meaning those along East 31st Street accounted for about 2.3 percent of all reported crashes since January 2020. Contact Carissa Woytach at (440) 329-7245 or cwoytach@chroniclet.com.