That large area in the top left corner (marked A) is 10 Wilmington Place. This is a retirement community. The structure was formerly the Southern Ohio Lunatic Asylum built in 1855 and placed on the National register in 1979. Samuel Edgar, the guy who built our house bought 8 acres of this land and donated it to the State of Ohio for this purpose in 1852. So we have a connection to this after all! The large open area in the bottom left (marked B) is Walnut Hills Park, owned by the City of Dayton. The structure that the proposed highway goes through (marked C) is a large house that sits on a hill about 30 feet above Stewart Street. The current owners of the property bought it in 1993 and plan to spend the rest of their lives there. The house was built in 1871 by a guy named Jonah Bull who bought the land from, you guessed it, Samuel Edgar. He had to sell it at sheriffs auction in 1881 because he owed creditors over $8000. The house is brick and the adjacent barn has hand hewn beams dating it to around 1830. Here is a picture of the house. Taken last year.
The owners had no idea this plan existed. They do now, though and have since May 2005 when I informed them. Should they choose to sell the house, well, they can't. They would have to disclose that this plan exists to a new buyer and it is not likely you would buy a home if there was a possibility that it would be seized from you in a few years. In order to save the house it was nominated and qualifies for the National Register and will be placed on it soon. For those who don't know, this eliminates the possibility of eminent domain being invoked by the city or the State. Only the federal government or the property owner can do anything to this property.
Construction at this intersection is scheduled to begin in 2009. Under normal circumstances the plans and proposals are to be presented in 2007 for public scrutiny. If the owners of this property were not made aware of this plan before then it may not have made the National Register.
So, take the land from the old State Hospital site you might say! Well, at the apex of the Y is a structure consisting of a pair of sentry boxes and a pair of pergolas that used to sit along both sides of an entry road.
This is also on the National Register! Looks like we have a bottleneck starting to appear, doesn't it?
More details; the population of the city has gone down considerably in the last ten years while that of the region has remained constant. Note, it is not increasing. In fact it is slowly decreasing. New development is going on in counties surrounding us but jobs are not being created in the city. Newest developement will be in the Northwest and not the Southeast where we are.
Traffic counts indicate 25,000 cars a day travel Wayne Avenue. I assume that means 12,500 each way. Not all of those vehicles pass this intersection. There were counter strips placed all around this junction 2 weeks ago so I'm sure the city is getting their number counts up to date.
More facts; residents on the one way part of Stewart Street don't want two-way traffic because they won't be able to park their cars on the street.
Coming out of the city there are 5 traffic lights along a 1 mile stretch of Wayne Ave before you get to this junction. This junction would make 6 lights. Three of those six traffic lights are in the area shown by the map, at Anderson and Wayne, Stewart and Wayne and Wayne and Wilmington.During peak times left turns from Wayne to Wilmington and Wayne to Wayne are awkward but traffic keeps moving.
Any questions? I will post a picture of the pergolas later. So check back!
When will they learn that building more roads just causes more traffic. I'm always afraid they'll make the busy 2 lane road in front of our house in to 4, like it is 4 blocks away. We don't have alley access, and some houses don't have driveways, so I hope they never do it. They're supposed to be gentrifying the neighbourhood, by adding pedestrian lights, and making it harder to cut through side streets, so hopefully more lanes aren't in the plan. Depends on who gets elected I guess.
ReplyDeleteMy daughters school is just down Wilmington from the Y, so when I go there after work I travel that way. Even in rush hour for me the intersection isn't that bad. Sure there's a little wait, but usually the other stop lights kind of break it up. There are plenty of other trouble spots, like Malfunction Junction that are worse than this. The powers that be must have no other pressing projects to actually spend time contemplating this.
ReplyDeleteThere was a plan back in the 70s to cut a major freeway right through the center of the old section of Eureka. CalTrans bought up several blocks of old Victorians and was going to bulldoze them all. It was stopped, although it was before my time here, so I’m not sure what all that entailed. CalTrans eventually dropped the plans altogether and later auctioned off all the houses after being the cities biggest landlord for a few decades. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteJeff,
ReplyDeleteIf you frequent this junction then you need to be at the meeting to voice your opinion. The concensus around here is that the improvements are not necessary. Meeting is Thursday Feb. 23rd 6 PM at..... of all places.... 10 Wilmington Place! Stop by and introduce yourself. Maybe you will get the "Crackhouse" tour.