LORAIN, Ohio — Safety at several Lorain intersections is getting renewed attention after two young girls were hit while crossing one of them on their way to the park.
Stop signs were added to create the city’s latest four-way stop at East 31st Street and Clinton Avenue in late August. The change happened one day after 10 and 6-year-old sisters were seriously injured crossing the intersection to get to nearby Oakwood Park.
The children’s father said the girls are recovering, but the older child suffered a broken nose, and the younger girl needed staples for a laceration on her head. Surveillance video provided from a nearby business showed the sisters holding hands and crossing ahead of their older brother when a westbound car struck them.
“I felt guilty. I felt like part of it was my fault,” said Ward 6 councilman Angel Arroyo.
He said he began advocating for improved safety measures shortly after findings from a 2015 study showed decreased traffic and prompted the city to remove traffic lights from the intersection.
“I was against that 100%. I walked the neighborhoods, got petitions signed by residents,” he said.
Within one day of the crash, the city’s director of public safety and service ordered the installation of stop signs on East 31st Street. Clinton Avenue already had stop signs at the North and South points of the intersection.
“This is a high-traffic area, with at times people going 40 plus miles per hour in a 25-mile-per-hour area. But more importantly, this is an area that is now a bike lane where they have people riding their bikes up and down the street. And that intersection is [near] one of the city’s biggest parks,” Arroyo said.
Now the councilman is asking the city to consider adding stop signs to other intersections in his ward, including East 31st Street and Palm Avenue and East 28th Street and Pearl Avenue.
News 5 cameras were rolling at East 31st Street and Palm Avenue Thursday when two cars collided in the intersection.
“I’m pretty used to it. I heard that crash and I said, ‘There’s a car accident.’ And there it was,” said Jesse Hernandez, an East 31st Street neighbor who came out onto his porch to see the crash.
Over his 50 years in the home, Hernandez recalled when the city removed traffic lights from the intersection and said he worries about the children walking in the neighborhood. He said he’d also like to see the city add stop signs to make it a four-way stop.
“People, they get too used to driving like they’re going straight down a highway at a speed they think they’re comfortable with. They don’t observe the 25-mile-per-hour zone,” he said.
Arroyo said East 28th Street and Pearl Avenue is another busy intersection that is difficult for pedestrians to cross.
Neighbors like Hernandez said they’d welcome any changes to improve safety.
“It’s just terrible. People aren’t observing. I’m on a main street here and I see it all the time,” he said.
The Lorain city engineer told News 5 on Thursday that the 2015 traffic study found 39 intersections did not warrant their existing traffic lights. Many were removed following the study’s recommendations.
The engineer said there are currently no plans to restore traffic lights to any intersections, but the city’s director of public safety and service has discretion to make changes.
