Study would analyze Aurora Road traffic

By SUE REID

Solon City Council's safety and public properties committee approved preparing legislation last week for a traffic study of the Aurora Road (Route 43) corridor at a cost of $25,430.

The work, to be performed by URS Corp., will span the section of Aurora Road from the Solar Center shopping plaza to Pettibone Road.

"It's a good time to take another look at it," city Engineer John J. Busch said of the corridor. "That is one of our main corridors."

The city had looked at it in the past, Mr. Busch said, when the traffic patterns were different.

"Obviously, things have changed," he said. That includes new developments outside the city bringing in extra traffic that has not been experienced in the past. There are also issues in the past with traffic that are not being experienced now.

The main focus of the study, Kevin Westbrooks, the city's traffic engineer with URS, said, would be in the area of Portz Parkway, Ayleshire Drive and the Carrington Court senior housing complex.

There are no traffic lights at those streets and onto Aurora Road.

Councilman Richard A. Bell had submitted to the committee at a past meeting a proposal for the study, as he has consistently received requests from residents in his ward to look at the area. Those requests came mostly from seniors living in Carrington Court as well as those residents living in the Ayleshire Development. They expressed a need to provide them with a safe solution to exiting their residential areas onto Aurora Road, Mr. Bell said.

The major complaint, Mr. Bell said, is the consistent traffic driving east toward Liberty Road, making it nearly impossible to make a left turn out of their developments to drive west on Aurora. Residents have complained of being "trapped," having to wait extended periods of time to exit those areas and of traffic backups that block the box of the intersections and view of the drivers.

"The consequences of this congestion are residents taking undue risk to themselves, their passengers and oncoming traffic, should they enter the moving traffic queue," Mr. Bell said.

Mr. Westbrooks said that as part of the study, he will be looking at both short- and long-term solutions. Short-term solutions will involve conducting a simulation analysis to see whether traffic signals or any other things can be done to try to help access in that area, especially during rush hour.

Long-term plans for the road can include the possibility of a connector road, a road widening, turn lanes or doing nothing at all, he said.

Mr. Westbrooks said that the city has done a number of things in terms of looking at that area over the past years. A traffic computer simulation had been done of Portz Parkway and Aurora Road, and the previous traffic engineer had done a study at Portz Parkway.

But, nothing has been done since the Carrington Court development was complete last year, Councilman William I. Russo said.

"We were waiting for that to get done," Mr. Russo said. What also delayed a study was the possibility of a connector road from Aurora Road to Solon Road to help with traffic issues and as part of the Coral development project proposal.

The potential redevelopment of the Giant Eagle supermarket and the Solar Center plaza was another reason to wait on the study, Mr. Russo said.

Mr. Westbrooks said this study can take up to three months as resident meetings will be held in conjunction with it.

"The proposed traffic study should be comprehensive and include not only the number of cars traveling Aurora Road in both directions at varying hours, but also the time gaps as well as the number of cars at each entry point attempting to enter traffic," Mr. Bell said. "The study should explore all options and solutions."

Mr. Busch said that to address all of Mr. Bell's specific issues and give him a good evaluation, "we need to look at all the issues at the corridor."