Huron's road striping plan explained

HURON — As the city put the finishing touches on the $2.7 million overhaul to U.S. 6, city officials have made the decision to test drive a road-diet concept over the next few months. In an effort to improve safety and increase connectivity within the community, the city has temporarily modified the traffic pattern on U.S. 6 to implement a road-diet concept: • A road diet involves a reduction of traffic lanes. — In Huron's case, it's a reduction from four lanes to three lanes, one of which is a center turn lane. • A road diet's main purpose is to both enhance safety through slowing traffic down and to improve connectivity by repurposing the vacated space once designated for vehicular traffic for bike lanes. — In Huron's case, the current layout, which created a 6-foot-wide bike lane in either direction, was designed in conjunction with and approved by both federal and state agencies. Providing safe and effective connection points for multimodal transportation has long been a goal of the city. The river, though an excellent natural resource, creates challenges for creating a cohesive and connected city. The road-diet striping plan, as well as the enhancements made over the summer to the sidewalks, are helping alleviate those challenges. "Both from a local and regional standpoint, the need to create safer pedestrian and cyclist infrastructure along this corridor is evident," Huron city manager Matt Lasko said. "The road-diet concept is a creative solution that achieves that mission while also efficiently serving the vehicular traffic needs of the corridor." The trial period has not been without challenges: Anytime a long-standing traffic pattern is modified, there are growing pains. "With the city moving as quickly as it did, to get this concept in place, it made it difficult to nail all of the logistics immediately," Lasko said. "While I believe the plan is working as intended, we acknowledge the rollout could have been cleaner. We're doing everything we can to make the trial period as successful and painless as possible and appreciate everyone's patience." Should the current road-diet plan remain permanently, there will be additional work undertaken to memorialize and further delineate the bike lanes from the vehicular lanes, such as bollards or enhanced striping of the bike lanes. The city intends to utilize the coming months to analyze the data and feedback from the community to decide whether this becomes a permanent modification. Council has set a goal of making a final decision by June 1. That decision will be made utilizing all of the data gathered as well as community input. If you have feedback, questions or commentary on the project, please contact the city by either emailing citymanager@huronohio.us or calling 419-433-5000, ext. 1105 and leave a voicemail.