DAYTON — A plan to cut down on crashes and deaths on roads in Dayton is showing some promising early results.
News Center 7’s Mike Campbell has reported on problems on Gettysburg Avenue and North Main Street for years. He investigated what is being done to turn roads some people call racetracks into safe streets.
Several Dayton roads are receiving major attention because they have earned well-deserved reputations for high speeds. North Main Street is often known for crashes, pedestrians being hit, and loss of lives.
On Gettysburg, it’s led to occasional drag racing, high-speed crashes, and people dying.
In May of 2022, at Gettysburg and Hillcrest, four young people, including one teen, were killed in a crash that police suspect involved high speeds. Officers also said they had reports of drag racing in the area shortly before the crash.
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The months and years after that got even worse. Drivers constantly spot large gatherings of vehicles that are often involved in honing displays and end in drag racing or chases when police pull up.
The danger didn’t let up, even when it was daytime business hours.
Cathy Clancy works at Stromas Flower Shop on Gettysburg Avenue near Little Richmond Road. She said, “You would see people even during the day, almost like racing each other and going 60, 70, 80mph in an hour.”
She continued by saying, “You thought you were on the Indy 500 for real. It was just zoom, zoom, zoom, and then this light, sometimes they stopped and sometimes they didn’t.”
Clancy said the dangerous driving made it difficult for people to turn into the business. She and the flower shop owners are happy that the situation has changed.
News Center 7 was there in the city of Dayton when contractors began installing speed bumps and speed tables in 2023. They’ve all been converted to speed tables now.
The speed bumps are now large, paved humps or bumps in the road that will send you airborne if you exceed the 35-mph posted speed limit.
Dayton City Engineer David Escobar said, “So, it’s a little bit more of a gradual cross that really slows traffic down and keeps them from doing doughnuts in the intersection or speeding through the area, so it deters that behavior.”
Escobar said the speed tables are about every half mile on Gettysburg Avenue.
The city is digging into data to see how much average speeds have dropped but Dayton Police Traffic Services Unit said for five consecutive years, 2018-2022, that there would be 40 injury crashes a year, and 9 people died in crashes over those five years.
In the first years with speed bumps, there were only 18 injury crashes and no deaths.
Escobar said, “We’ve deterred the street racing and the dangerous behavior. We’re encouraged by that.”
The speed bumps worked great on Gettysburg Avenue, but the city decided they weren’t the right approach for the problems on North Main Street. They are using a so-called road diet to slow speeds and improve safety here.
The work is well underway. The city is changing the road and two tightly packed, narrow lanes in each direction. Now, there will be one wide lane in each direction plus a dedicated left turn lane.
“Our biggest thing out there on North Main Street was the pedestrian accidents,” Escobar said.
He told News Center 7 that a modified road diet is also planned for Keowee Street between Fifth Street and Monument Avenue. It changes the road from seven total lanes to five total lanes.
“I have seen a great difference. People are not speeding as bad,” Clancy said.
The bottom line is that these projects are designed to keep everyone safer.
City engineers said they expect the North Main Street construction to be done and to have the road repaved and restriped in September.
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