TOLEDO, OH (WTOL) - A public meeting is going on to discuss the road restrictions that are all but blocking off a portion of the Old South End.
WTOL 11 talked with people at Saints Peter & Paul Church who hoped for community members to join them at the hall to talk about how to solve the problem.
Access to the neighborhood has been reduced because of work on the Anthony Wayne Trail and I-75 by the Ohio Department of Transportation, and the Maumee Street Bridge by the city of Toledo.
With three churches in this neighborhood, many who commute from across town or further have stopped coming which is causing a drop in needed donations.
“I am really really disappointed in the City of Toledo and I’m really disappointed in the traffic engineering. I don’t believe we had enough notice, and then by the time they did close all the streets down, there’s no access to get anywhere,” Parishioner at SS Peter & Paul, Maria Villagomez said.
Villagomez said she’s noticed a significant drop in mass attendance over the past three weeks of about 50 percent.
“I happen to know the streets because I live here, but we have a lot of parishioners that come from other cities. Tiffin, Findlay, they come here because of the Spanish mass," she said.
Drivers are beyond frustrated about the fact that there's now only one way in and out of this Old South End neighborhood.
Andrea Mendoza Loch lives in West Toledo and still comes to church here as she has her whole life. Today, she was here for choir practice, but said she doesn’t like the idea of driving home through dangerous neighborhoods at night, which these closures now dictate.
“I have to go through either Collingwood Avenue or Downtown and now that takes an extra 10 minutes," she continued.
Some cited concerns they don't think road planners have taken into account.
Many in the neighborhood are on a fixed income and now have to spend more money in gas just to get out.
The one road they have, Erie Street, has large speedbumps that are being damaged by the heavy equipment passing through.
ODOT said, they understand it’s not ideal, and are looking at solutions to ease the pain this neighborhood is experiencing.
“We’re aware and have talked with several folks in that neighborhood," Rebecca Dangelo, spokesperson for ODOT said.
Below are the options ODOT is exploring:
- The Anthony Wayne Trail project was supposed to be in a new traffic pattern by now there have been problems with the railroad.
- The new pattern is expected later this summer and there is a possibility of making Emerald at the Trail a right in, right out at that time, which would open another access point.
- The I-75 project can’t work on the bridge above Emerald Ave with traffic underneath for safety reasons.
- The Erie St/Collingwood Blvd/75 Ramps area was also slated to be closed this summer, but ODOT has told the contractor they cannot do that, because we must maintain access to this neighborhood.
- ODOT said it didn’t anticipate the Trail being reduced to one inbound lane into 2019, but now they can’t change that traffic pattern. Because of that, they are looking into creating a temporary access for the neighborhood, but the grade is too steep (and there’s water/sewer utilities that we would have to dig up and bury deeper, and that’s not feasible.)
- The 75 project has the Erie/Collingwood area and Emerald Ave under 75 tied up for a year and a half, but at the end of the summer, there should be two more access points opened up (AWT and Maumee).
ODOT understands it’s not ideal, but they said they could not push back the four-year I-75 construction project, and are making a good faith effort to ease the pain this neighborhood is experiencing.
“We’re also working very, very hard with ODOT that they have to provide an alternative route to come into the neighborhood. We have not gotten a positive response yet, but hope springs eternal. We’re standing in front of Saint Peter and Paul Church," Peter Ujvagi, Toledo City Councilman for this part of the city said.
