U.S. Route 62 cut lower Masury in half when it was made a four-lane highway some years ago.
The severing of the principal neighborhoods in the area would be complete if the Ohio Department of
Transportation goes ahead with plans to change the intersections of Route 62 with Bedford Road and
Broadway Avenue, said Tom Cornelius, who lives on Stewart Sharon Road.
Officials said any changes to the intersections would be done to to try to reduce motor vehicle crashes.
Cornelius asked state officials to consider other repercussions of the changes before deciding what to do.
ODOT held a virtual public meeting on June 22, part of the process of examining the safety of the
intersections following a Sept. 20, 2018, fatal crash involving a garbage truck and a minivan at 62 and
Bedford.
ODOT hired consulting firm EMH&T of Columbus to conduct a safety study.
Abby Cueva, project manager for EMH&T, said crash data compiled from 2014-18 showed that there were 16 crashes at Bedford and 10 of them were injury crashes, an alarming percentage. There were 13 crashes at Broadway, with four of them resulting in injuries.
If ODOT does nothing, those crash trends would continue, Cueva said.
The study looked at a number of alternatives, from eliminating the intersections to putting in traffic lights
and even roundabouts, but settled on two preferences, based on a 2019 meeting with local, county and
regional officials.
The preferred option at Bedford Road is to install a restricted crossing U-turn, known as an RCUT. The
median motorists now use to cross Route 62 from one side of Bedford to the other, turn left to enter 62
from Bedford, or exit Route 62 to turn left onto Bedford, would be blocked off. Motorists from Bedford
who want to cross the highway or turn left onto 62 would cross two lanes of 62 and immediately enter a U-turn lane leading to a new median crossing. The U-turn would extend off the road on the other side of Route 62 so that trucks and other larger vehicles can swing the turn. Traffic on Route 62 looking to make left turns onto Bedford also would use the turn lanes. Right turns from Bedford to 62 or from 62 to Bedford would remain as they are.
At Broadway, the median would be blocked and traffic between Route 62 and Broadway would be
restricted to right-turn-in or right-turn-out movements. Motorists who want to turn left or get across Route
62 would have to go to the Bedford RCUT, or use the Route 82-Route 62 cloverleaf.
Although the crossovers would be eliminated, an emergency U-turn would be built between Broadway
and Route 82 for police, fire departments and medical personnel to reach calls for service, Cueva said.
Cornelius said he lives north of 62, while the Masury Post Office is on the south side.
“Our community is being cut in half. Access to the post office, of course, is being substantially altered,”
he said.
Cornelius asked if officials had measured the impact on alternative routes. He said he expects local
residents from his side of Route 62 looking to go to Sharon and who are used to accessing Route 62 from
Bedford will now go to Addison Road, cross Route 82, and travel to the end of Addison just outside of the
Sharon line, where it connects to 62. That would put more pressure on the Addison crossover of Route 82,
drive traffic into a residential neighborhood, and gum things up more when Brookfield High School plays
a home football game at the field on Addison.
“It seems like we’d just be trading one crossing (of) two lanes of traffic and shifting it to another,” he said.
Crashes that do not involve animals at 82 and Addison average two a year, said ODOT Highway Safety
Engineer David Griffith, but he did not discount Cornelius’s concerns. “We can look at that and, if there
are problems that develop there, we can address them.”
Cueva said the traffic volume that might move to other routes as Cornelius described is relatively low.
“We’re talking about 100 to 200 cars in a day,” she said, with peak drive periods of only 10 to 30 vehicles.
Heidi Bulick of First Street discounted the danger of making the crossing movements over Route 62.
“Crossing that intersection is absolutely the easiest thing to do,” she said. “Shooting straight across is no
problem.”
“For me, the biggest danger for this whole entire intersection is when you make the right-hand turn onto
62” eastbound from Bedford, Bulick said. “You can’t see around that bend, one, because of trees, and, two, just
because the bend is so severe; and then the other is when making the right-hand turn onto Broadway, you
can’t safely do that without feeling like somebody’s going to rear-end you. Both of those factors that are
impacting those of us that have lived here for years are going to increase if we’ve got increased traffic
now making this U-turn.”
Cueva said that trees on the south wide of Route 62, west of Bedford, will be cut, either as part of this
project or, with Trumbull County’s assistance, much sooner.
“When you look left, if we can get some of those cleared out of the way it’s really gonna help with the site
distance,” Cueva said.
ODOT estimated constructing the two preferred alternatives would cost $3.14 million, with the federal
government paying for 90 percent of the cost. However Cueva said, no final decisions have been made
and comments can be submitted through July 23 at publicinput.com/ODOT110598 or to
Sean.Carpenter@dot.ohio.gov The public input website also includes a copy of the study, a number of
other documents, videos explaining RCUTs, and a video of the public meeting.
Officials expect to select the work to be done in September and begin right-of-acquisition shortly
afterward, but the design will not be completed until 2022, with construction in 2023
