CINCINNATI — The College Hill community voted on Tuesday to keep current traffic safety measures on North Bend Road from Hamilton to Stella avenues.
The "Complete Streets" design was implemented last August on Hamilton Avenue from North Bend Road to Hollywood Avenue and North Bend Road between Simpson and Hempwood Avenues.
The Devou Good Foundation worked with the College Hill Forum Community Council and Cincinnati’s Department of Transportation and Engineering (DOTE) to implement a road diet to improve safety, reducing the number of driving lanes from four to two.
“I live on West North Bend Road right in the middle of all the barricades, and I appreciate them,” said Honeykaye Baldridge, who has lived in the area for nearly 20 years.
Baldridge said people used to speed up and down the street all the time.
“Before the barricades, and it was like the Indianapolis 500 every second of the day, night,” Baldridge said.
The community council held an advisory vote to see if the community liked the changes. Over 240 people voted on three different options. Council President David Borreson said they will share the totals with DOTE. He said the city will have the final say on what they decide to do with that stretch of North Bend.
The College Hill Forum meeting is packed and there are over 100 people on Zoom. Residents are voting on whether or not to keep the recently implemented traffic calming measures. @WCPO pic.twitter.com/g6mzYGFTKp
— Jessica Hart WCPO (@JessicaHartTV) April 23, 2024
Baldridge along with 125 other people voted for the current format: one traffic lane in each direction, one protected buffer lane and one permanent parking lane.
Ninety-eight people voted for option two: one traffic lane in each direction, one center turn lane and one permanent parking lane.
Jim Bodmer, a College Hill resident of 61 years, voted for this option to help first responders weave through traffic. He’s disappointed the majority didn’t vote for this option.
“I think they made a mistake because the way it is right now with two lanes, emergency vehicles, especially ambulances cannot get through,” he said.
Only 18 people voted for option three: one traffic lane in each direction, one center turn lane, one protected buffer lane.
Terance Riley was one of the 18 who voted for this option because it took away street parking.
“It can be crazy at times, I guess, with the traffic backing up,” he said,
Riley has lived in College Hill for 20 years. He said he does feel like the current street layout does improve safety.
People voted for these three options in person and via Zoom. Some people weren’t happy with how the votes were counted. If you attended the meeting in person, you were given a card to hold up to vote.
“This whole process bothered me. The fact that you could just come up here and say you're a stakeholder and you got a card,” said Valda Freeman-Karmo, who has lived in College Hill for over 16 years.
Freeman-Karmo said one person she talked with doesn’t even live in College Hill and voted on the street design.
“You did sign in but they didn’t know where you were from,” she said. “I feel the vote is flawed and invalid.”
Because of this, she doesn’t think the vote is reflective of the community and wants the Cincinnati City Council to redo the vote.
“My next recourse is to go to the city council and tell them like if you seriously want to know what College Hill residents think about this then mail us something — there’s not that many of us,” she said.
Baldridge said the current street design has made it much easier for her to get in and out of her driveway. She said she doesn’t have to wait for traffic to die down in the library parking lot near her house to pull into her driveway.
“When I first moved into my house a couple of years back I got hit going into my driveway from traffic and the cops cited me for going into my driveway too slow,” Baldridge said.
She said the current design improves safety for her and her neighbors. She hopes the city keeps the current design.
