Ohio and Geauga County officials concerned about the safety of local Amish buggies amid the area's fast and, occasionally, furious automotive traffic met to outline…
Ohio and Geauga County officials concerned about the safety of local Amish buggies amid the area’s fast and, occasionally, furious automotive traffic met to outline strategies for improvement Jan. 12.
Although few horses pulled buggies through the snow belt’s first snowstorm of 2016 Tuesday, about 40 county, village, Amish and township officials met with Ohio Department of Transportation representatives and a consultant with the Geauga County Engineer’s Office, said Burton Township Trustee Jim Dvorak.
“I’m glad (county Engineer) Joe Cattell picked up the torch. I believe in the whole concept,” Dvorak said, adding he and Middlefield Township Trustee Bob Troyer talked about widening state Route 87 from the Trumbull County line to Burton several years ago, but the recent discussion involves a much bigger scale.
Brian Blayney, traffic planning engineer in the ODOT District 12 Planning Department, presented a plan last Tuesday to amass, analyze and prioritize a wide spectrum of data regarding Amish buggy accidents, areas frequently traveled by Amish buggies, such as hills or curves that witness the most buggy-motor vehicle dangers, and areas in the county where a lot of Amish pedestrians may be encountered, such as near Amish schools.
In the Amish Safety Strategic Plan he shared with the Geauga County Maple Leaf, Blayney said it was an update and refinement of a similar plan put together in 2000 that never got to the next step.
But much has changed since then, including increased car and truck traffic in Geauga and a continued growth of the Amish population in the south and east townships and villages.
“It was tailored to the six townships in Geauga County,” Blayney said.
Huntsburg, Middlefield, Parkman, Burton, Claridon and Troy townships and Burton and Middlefield village police departments, county commissioners, and District 4 ODOT are considered “stakeholders” in the study while ODOT, Cattell, the Geauga County Sheriff’s Office, Ohio State Highway Patrol and the Amish Safety Committee are on the steering committee, according to the presentation.
Consultant Kevin Miller of civil engineering firm LJB, Inc. is helping put the project together, he said.
Last Tuesday’s meeting was the first of three scheduled this year and brought all the parties together so they could all get on the same page, said Parkman Township Trustee Jon Ferguson, adding there were all levels of understanding among those attending.
“(ODOT is) trying to lay the ground work, to see if they are headed in the right direction,” he said.
The second meeting, expected to be held in about three months, will focus on reviewing a draft plan, and the third meeting, about six weeks later, will be to confirm all parties are on board with the priorities in a final plan, Blayney said.
Geauga County Sheriff Dan McClelland said the current study includes statistics on buggy-vehicle accidents from law enforcement’s accident investigations and reports. It also gives local officials ideas on how they can address the causes of accidents.
“Data input plays a role going into future education for drivers of both cars and buggies,” he said.
Improved signage warning all drivers of dangerous areas and lowered speed limits in those areas would be quick and easy steps that could be taken locally, McClelland said.
In the last few years, it has become legal to put up signs warning drivers of Amish schools to help keep pedestrians safer, Cattell said. An Amish school on Georgia Road in Burton and Middlefield townships was the place to begin due to heavy truck traffic in the area.
“We established the first legal school zone for an Amish school,” he said.
Until the Ohio Revised Code was changed a few years ago, there was no provision for the signage, he said.
“We also put up pre-warning flashers,” Cattell said, adding his department has been talking to other Amish schools since then about getting more signs put up. It is a work in progress, but he remains hopeful.
“When it comes to child safety, the Amish have been very receptive,” Cattell said.
Other areas besides schools see a lot of Amish foot traffic, and buggy lanes along some of those stretches of road would benefit pedestrian as well as buggy traffic.
“(State) Route 608 north of Middlefield Village was specially mentioned in the meeting. It certainly needs to be looked at,” McClelland said.
Middlefield Village Mayor Ben Garlich has called for widening Route 608 to include buggy lanes such as those on state Route 528, and ODOT said they may consider that, but the cost is prohibitive. Funding from organizations such as the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency, a stakeholder at the meeting, would be essential to any such endeavor.
After the meeting, Garlich said the concept is good and the data presented valuable, but he maintains Route 608 is his focus. The proposal will recommend work on roads in a very large area and involve a lot of stakeholders.
“I’d like to see it gain some traction,” Garlich said. “The Amish population is critical to Middlefield commerce. We need to make it as user-friendly as we can.”
To build buggy lanes is not just a matter of moving over ditches and putting down asphalt, he said.
“There would have to be a lot of property acquisition,” Garlich said.
“Buggy lanes are quite costly,” McClelland agreed, adding even paved areas on hills where buggies can move over to let faster traffic pass would be expensive.
However, removing obstacles that interfere with a buggy driver’s view of on-coming vehicles is a more practical goal, he said.
Those drivers sit far behind the horse’s head, so sometimes they have to pull out farther than someone driving a car, McClelland said, adding items in their line of site need to be removed.
Most Geauga drivers are used to sharing the road with Amish buggies and know it is legal to pass a buggy, even in a no-passing zone, because horses trot slower than 25 mph and are considered obstacles, he said.
Visitors, however, may be less aware of the limitations of a buggy and may cause problems for all vehicles. According to the data presented, about 75 percent of accidents between buggies and vehicles occur at the tops of hills, McClelland said.
Drivers’ education should include instructions, statewide, on how to approach and safely pass buggies on the road, he said.
For instance, tooting a car horn while passing a horse-drawn vehicle is a bad idea, the sheriff said.
“(ODOT) will take a survey amongst the Amish to get their feedback on concerns,” McClelland said.
Other ideas would be to standardize buggy lighting and reflective tape markings so drivers know what they are seeing when approaching a buggy in the dark. He credited the Amish Safety Committee with encouraging their brethren to add lights and reflectors to the black buggies so they are more visible at night.
Blayney appreciated the Amish Safety Committee’s participation during the Jan. 12 meeting.
“They were great, very active in the dialog,” he said. “I feel I learned a lot. They talked about the unpredictability of the horses that pull the buggies.”
Al Yoder, Eli Byler and Paul Troyer represented the Amish Safety Committee last Tuesday.
“It was quite humbling to be there and see all these elected people working on our behalf,” Byler said Jan. 14, adding the committee appreciates ODOT’s efforts. “I think (the meeting) was an important step.”
Overall, he said the accident rate between vehicles and buggies is not terrible, considering the large number of buggies and the increase in vehicles on Geauga roads, and he attributes that, in part, to the committee’s efforts.
“We are trying, as a safety committee, to educate all our people,” he said. Committee members visit 15 to 20 Amish schools through the winter to talk to the students about how to stay safe when driving.
“We try to educate the kids, get them aware of the dangers of the road,” Byler said.
There is agreement that if funding became available, buggy lanes are the answer.
“Every meeting ends up buggy lanes would be best,” he said.
