CINCINNATI -- A proposed roundabout along Northside's busy Hamilton Avenue corridor took a step forward during Monday's Neighborhoods Committee meeting.
The committee unanimously voted to direct the Department of Transportation and Engineering to conduct a study into the feasibility of turning Knowlton's Corner -- the five-way intersection of Hamilton and Spring Grove avenues with Hoffner Street -- into a roundabout configuration.
Vice Mayor David Mann put forward the motion.
"We don't want our neighborhoods to be places that people drive through," Mann told WCPO when he first presented the motion last week. "They are places where people live, and they need to be respected and treated that way."
More and more, transportation officials are considering roundabouts as a way to calm traffic and prevent speeding -- an issue with which Hamilton Avenue residents and business owners have become too familiar over the last several years.
The committee heard remarks from Northside community members during Monday's meeting, a number of whom expressed frustration that more hasn't been done already to prevent speeding and expand protections for pedestrians and bicyclists.
James Heller-Jackson, who has served on both the Northside and Camp Washington community councils, presented at Monday's meeting and reminded the committee of well-known Hamilton Avenue business owner, Sarah Cole, who was struck and killed along the corridor in September 2016. Cole's death served as the catalyst for the Northside Community Council to request a pedestrian safety study along Hamilton Avenue, which is currently underway.
Heller-Jackson described Hamilton Avenue as the "wild, wild west."
Fellow Northside business owner, Judi LoPresti -- who with her husband owns Spun Bicycles on Hamilton Avenue -- described her experience when a customer was struck outside her shop and had her leg broken in three places.
"(My husband) Dominic sat with her and held her hand until the ambulance arrived," she said.
For LoPresti, the traffic study is all well and good, but said numbers are one thing. Living it is another.
"You guys are studying data and statistics," she told the committee. "But we see it every day."
Pat LaFleur reports on transportation and mobility for WCPO. Connect with him on Twitter (@pat_laFleur) and on Facebook.
