Residents and council raise questions about ODOT ‘target speed pilot’ on Reading Road

Residents and several council members on June 2 pressed officials for more data and context about Ohio Department of Transportation’s proposed Reading Road changes, which would reduce four travel lanes to two plus a center turn lane as part of a "target speed pilot program." Bob Wimmers said the plan appeared "counterintuitive from a traffic-flow perspective," likening lane reductions to "reducing the size of a drainage pipe." He asked whether Reading was being used as a testing ground for an unproven system.

Councilman Andy Bronner said ODOT representatives told the council the "pilot" label referred more to funding structure than to the road-diet concept itself, which he said had been implemented elsewhere. Councilman Bob Boehner said traffic volumes for the corridor were reported at roughly 15,000–16,000 vehicles per day and noted questions about when counts were taken and whether they captured school-peak traffic. Resident Patrick McCarty pressed for case studies from similar projects and said safety and emergency-response implications should be reviewed, noting his research that fire stations serving communities under 15,000 residents commonly range from about 6,000 to 12,000 square feet compared with a proposed facility of about 23,000 square feet.

Council members described outreach steps: a staff-created SurveyMonkey questionnaire, ongoing public meetings with ODOT, and a benchmark of 260 resident responses set by Councilman Bronner as a gauge before a final decision. "Absent a substantial level of opposition from residents, I am inclined to place significant weight on the recommendations and analysis provided by transportation professionals," Bronner said, while encouraging continued public input. The council did not vote on the project at the meeting and reiterated that no final decision had been reached.