The Allen County Engineers plan to conduct traffic surveys on roadways like the intersection of Cole St. and Diller Rd. to improve traffic and safety.
Precious Grundy | The Lima News
LIMA — As the traffic increases, Allen County may see changes to local roadways. Allen County Commissioners approved the Allen County Engineer to enter into a contract with Mannik & Smith Group to conduct a safety study to analyze roadways countywide. Last year, the Allen County Engineer received grant monies of $71,500 from the County Engineer’s Association of Ohio. According to the resolution approved at Thursday morning’s meeting, the studies will be held on Breese Road between Beeler and McClain, Cole Street between Diller and Beery and Ft. Amanda between Buckeye and Adgate.
Allen County Roadway Engineer Dave Louth weighed in.
”Through regional planning and accident locations that occur throughout the county we (with regional planning) identify some areas that have safety concerns, traffic congestion and anything like that,” said Louth. “We identified three different locations. Through the county engineers association and the work they do through the state of Ohio they can secure funding for safety-type projects and one of those is called a safety study.”
The organization will use the findings from the survey to determine the next steps for better roadways. In order to conduct the survey, Louth said the organization will utilize various ways to collect the data. The Mannik & Smith Group will look at past data, use traffic cameras and much more.
“They will take that data and enter it into different programs they have that project traffic and forecast traffic into the future and see what kind of congestion problems we are going to have down the road,” said Louth. “That is when they can propose a roundabout in an intersection or changing traffic signal timing or adding a turn lane or widening the road any of those kinds of things can be resolved out of this traffic study.”
Louth said the organization hopes to complete the study by the end of August.
”We have some intersections that are congested and create some traffic problems throughout,” said Louth. “Traffic is only increasing in Allen County. We are seeing more and more issues as the years pass and traffic increases. The number one thing is to cut down on accidents and number two to cut down on congestion and get a better flow of traffic.”
Reach Precious Grundy at 567-242-0351.
