More than 12,000 people live along the corridor, and some say they’ve grown disillusioned after years of meetings and plans but little actual progress.
“For years, we get the same thing,” said Gloria White, who has lived near North Main Street for 23 years and is the president of the Santa Clara Neighborhood Association. “We’re absolutely tired.”
But city staff insist that this time is different, because some resources are already committed and they are confident the city will receive funding for “transformative” infrastructure improvements.
“This isn’t a plan that we’re going to say, ‘Plan done, good luck, we’re moving onto something else,’” said Tony Kroeger, Dayton’s planning manager. “We’re sticking with this here.”
“There’s really stuff going on here,” Kroeger said.
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Too fast, too furious
Traffic and pedestrian safety concerns raised by neighbors convinced the city to conduct a traffic safety study on North Main Street from the Great Miami Boulevard to Shiloh Springs Road, city officials said.
About 18,400 vehicles travel along North Main every day, but too many drive way too fast, especially while navigating a tight turn at Santa Clara Avenue that neighbors call “dead man’s curve.”
In a 14-month period, there were 16,000 speeding violations captured by a traffic camera on North Main, the city said, and the average speed of offending vehicles was 50 mph — 15 mph over the speed limit.
Between 2011 and 2017, the crash rate on North Main Street increased every year, and there were 900 auto crashes from 2015 to 2017, including seven that were fatal, said Joe Weinel, chief engineer with the city’s bureau of design engineering.
More than 820 people cross North Main Street every day at various intersections, including more than 160 pedestrians at both Ridge Avenue and Parkwood Drive, according to a weekday count of a 12-hour period between 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Between 2015 and 2017, about three dozen crashes involved pedestrians.
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The traffic safety study, which gathered feedback from residents and other stakeholders, recommends putting North Main Street on a “road diet,” similar to what was done to Brown Street by the University of Dayton.
Slimming it down
The study recommends shrinking North Main Street to three lanes. The street would have one wider lane in each direction and a middle turn lane.
To benefit the Santa Clara business district, the study recommends creating an 8-foot parking lane on one side of North Main from Great Miami Boulevard to Fairview Avenue.
From Fairview Avenue to Siebenthaler Street, the study recommends creating a 3.5-foot buffer on both sides of the road, but no parking.
Weinel said other recommendations include installing curb extensions to “tighten” up the road and putting in some traffic islands to make crossing easier.
Weinel also said engineers would like to reconfigure the sharp turn at Santa Clara Avenue to be more gradual.
The proposed road diet and traffic-calming changes would be expected to cause less than a 10-second delay at each stoplight along North Main, Weinel said.
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The study also recommends installing new street lights to improve the pedestrian experience.
The state has approved $77,000 in safety funding to hire a consultant to prepare a feasibility study to refine the proposed implementation plans contained in the traffic safety study, Weinel said.
The safety study recommended $10 million to $11 million in improvements, but it’s unrealistic to think the city could secure that much money.
The feasibility study is expected to begin in March and be completed by the fall, at which time the city hopes to apply for safety construction funding, Weinel said.
The funds hopefully would be available in 2021, with construction starting in 2022 or 2023, Weinel said.
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But some residents say they have heard similar things for years and they have grown impatient.
Same old, same old
White, who is involved in multiple local neighborhood and business organizations, said she’s attended many meetings and participated in lots of discussions over the years about a new vision for North Main.
So far, she said, there’s been few results and it’s hard not to feel like this is just the “same old song and dance.”
But White she really hopes this time things will get done, because if they don’t, older residents along corridor will die off and no one will replace them, and the decline will accelerate.
“To me, it’s ‘Groundhog Day,’” she said. “It’s just over and over again.”
North Main Street strategic plans date back at least to the mid-1990s, when residents and city officials met to try to address parking, deteriorating facades and aesthetics.
Public meetings were held in 2003 to share and discuss proposed revitalization plans for North Main.
Some people understandably are skeptical and discouraged because they remember plans that never happened, said Victoria McNeal, president of the Riverdale Neighborhood Association who has lived in the area for nearly 30 years.
“It seems like there’s been progress, hopefully it will come to pass,” she said. “I just pray.”
McNeal said she hopes that infrastructure investments will change the perception of the corridor, but the “horrendous” blight along it is a huge challenge to drawing new businesses.
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New hope for North Main
But the city has listened to residents’ concerns about crime, safety and neighborhood conditions and is investing in the North Main corridor, said Kroeger, the planning manager.
The Dayton Police Department installed a new gunshot detection system, called ShotSpotter, to try to combat shootings in the North Main Street area.
The city has allocated $20,000 in Community Development Block Grant dollars for a permanent capital project to improve the neighborhood, said Susan Vincent, a city planner.
The city will work with residents to come up with some project ideas, she said, and the final plans should be identified by the fall.
The city also offers $5,000 mini-grants, which could help pay for events or smaller reactivation projects that show there’s still life and hope in the corridor, Vincent said.
“It’s important to not give up,” she said. “It’s not going to make a huge difference, but it starts to make a little difference, and we’ve got to keep plugging away.”
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