Bike lanes, roundabout among changes proposed for Warsaw Avenue

CINCINNATI (FOX19) - An Ohio Department of Transportation study on Warsaw Avenue in East Price Hill is out with a series of recommendations to improve the safety of the high-traffic corridor.

The recommendations (embedded below) include a Warsaw Avenue road diet from Grand Avenue to Glenway Avenue as well as significant changes to the five-point intersection of Warsaw, Glenway and Seton avenues and Quebec Road.

The options will be presented to the East Price Hill Improvement Association Community Council during a virtual meeting Nov. 16.

Vehicle and pedestrian crashes prompted the study, and the study found more than the corridor’s fair share, among them the crash that killed Rosemary Ventura’s father.

Ventura says she saw someone hit her father, Federico, on Nov. 7, 2017 as he was crossing Warsaw.

“While he was crossing the street a car hit him and left him in the street, and a second vehicle hit him and dragged him onto McPherson Avenue,” Ventura said, adding the pain of her father’s loss is “always still there.”

Elder High School teacher Mark Klusman was struck on Warsaw just two weeks afterwards. He died as a result of his injuries.

Nineteen other pedestrian-involved crashes occurred on Warsaw during the period under review, from 2016-2018.

An additional 376 crashes also took place, the study says, including 111 crashes that resulted in some form of injury.

Half the pedestrian-involved crashes occurred in the 0.4-mile section of Warsaw between McPherson and Considine Avenue. The study lists speeding, driver inattention and high pedestrian volume as factors.

Three pedestrian crashes happened at the five-points intersection, which “unusual vehicle paths and the high amount of pedestrian traffic” predispose to crashes of that type, the study says.

EPHIA Community Council President Sheila Rosenthal says it was the deaths of Klusman and Ventura’s father that spurred calls for change.

“It’s really important for the future of the community and for our neighbors,” she said.

Of all the changes put forward by ODOT, Ventura says she just wants whatever it takes to prevent another family from going through what she has.

“I feel like he would be really happy to hear that all of these things are happening,” she said, “and that’s why I take this very personal and close to my heart, because I know that it was one of his dreams to just make Price Hill a better place, so if there is any way I can carry out his dream, I am going to do it.”

See a spelling or grammar error in our story? Click here to report it. Please include title of story.

Copyright 2020 WXIX. All rights reserved.