Urban Community School sits on busy Lorain Avenue in Cleveland鈥檚 Ohio City neighborhood.
The campus is growing. Next door is a new MetroHealth building that offers care to students, their families and neighbors.
All kinds of vehicles pass by the West Side pre-K-through-8 school on a recent morning: cars, trucks, a cyclist. In early May, a driver hit a sixth-grade student who was walking to school.
鈥淢etroHealth is right here. She had immediate attention,鈥� Tom Gill, the private school鈥檚 president, told 91制片厂. 鈥淭ook her to main campus, she checked out just fine, thank God. And we knew we had a challenge on our hands for a long time. That event felt inevitable.鈥�
Mayor Justin Bibb鈥檚 administration is looking for new ways to calm traffic and make streets safer for bicyclists and pedestrians. When Gill advocated for changes on Lorain after the collision, City Hall reacted quickly. At the end of May, Cleveland installed delineators on Lorain.
They look like big white bowling pins, arrayed up on either side of the street. The pylons narrow Lorain from two lanes in each direction to one. That forces drivers to slow down as they approach the school鈥檚 crosswalks and gives students a shorter distance to travel.
鈥淭he true test will be once August comes 鈥� and we鈥檙e at 780 kids on campus every day and all those things,鈥� Gill said. 鈥淏ut yeah, absolutely, squeezing this down into one lane for this stretch has been very effective, and I hope it continues.鈥�
More than two dozen people have died in traffic collisions in Cleveland this year, , the city鈥檚 traffic safety initiative. Some were children. and a died in April after being struck by motorists. Recently a driver hit three people riding bikes, .
Traffic fatalities have increased across Cuyahoga County over the last several years, rising from 79 in 2019 to 121 last year, .
Changes to people鈥檚 daily routines during the coronavirus pandemic could play a role in that increase in crashes, according to Matt Moss, a Cleveland city planner.
鈥淏ut also, with certain roads that have had less traffic, it鈥檚 easier for drivers to either lose track of how fast they鈥檙e going or intentionally speed,鈥� Moss said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a phenomenon that we don鈥檛 fully understand.鈥�
Across the street from Urban Community School is Byright Auto Sales, a small car lot on the corner of Lorain and West 48th Street. Chuck Sullivan鈥檚 family owns the company, and he鈥檚 not pleased with the way things played out.
鈥淭hey put all these things up and took our parking for our customers,鈥� he said. 鈥淎nd it鈥檚 just kind of irritating. They never considered us, never asked our opinion.鈥�
After hearing local business complaints, Cleveland restored some street-side parking by removing delineators. The city also shifted another pylon over so it wasn鈥檛 in the way of Sullivan鈥檚 garage, he said.
Sullivan said he understands that the city and the school want to protect kids crossing the street.
鈥淚 can see that side of things,鈥� he said. 鈥淏ut what they should have done is had a police officer here every day, or somebody who knew what they were doing, helping the kids cross the street.鈥�
These are the interests that the new Bibb administration has to balance, or decide between, as it tries to make Cleveland streets more hospitable to people who aren鈥檛 driving cars.
This year, the mayor and council , which is aimed at making roads better for pedestrians, cyclists or transit riders. Now, when a street is due for road work, the city will consider design changes early in the process 鈥� rather than when it鈥檚 already underway.
鈥淚 think that鈥檚 contributed to a lot of frustration in the past between the city and residents and advocates and other stakeholders,鈥� said Calley Mersmann, whom Bibb recently elevated to a new role as senior strategist for transit and mobility. 鈥淪o this moves all of that conversation to the front.鈥�
Mersmann said it doesn鈥檛 necessarily take a big, expensive capital project to make a road safer.
鈥淲e look at what we call low-cost safety countermeasures, things that the city can come in and do quickly with delineators, with striping,鈥� she said. 鈥淰ery low-cost things that don鈥檛 require pouring new concrete.鈥�
For example, . The tables are longer, flatter versions of speed bumps. The city picked side streets where people are driving too fast, including two roads where drivers fatally struck children.
Overall, the street segments with the most crashes tend to be the longest, widest roads, according to Moss, the city planner. He said the city knows it can't eliminate all crashes. The hope instead is to reduce their severity.
鈥淎s long as we鈥檙e still driving cars, there will be crashes,鈥� he said. 鈥淎nd the goal is that these crashes don鈥檛 result in a death or someone having to go to the hospital or have a life-altering injury for the rest of their lives. That鈥檚 the goal.鈥�
Even though cities have been designed around the personal automobile for many decades, Moss said, they don鈥檛 have to be in the future.
