Suspense! The plan.....

There are two players in this plan. The City of Dayton and the Miami Valley Regional Planning Commission. The facts:
Project sponsor: City of Dayton
Project Name: Wayne and Wilmington Intersection Improvements
Project Location: Intersection of Wilmington Ave, Wayne Ave and Stewart Street
Project Description: Realign Stewart Street with Wayne Avenue and convert to two-way, widen Wayne Avenue and Wilmington Avenue to 5 lanes.

Someone has had their eye on this intersection for a long time. They would probably like to get home 5 minutes sooner due to congestion on Wayne Avenue at rush hour. Work on this junction was ranked #6 on a list of 12 priorities for a 30 year plan.
The junction is unique. It is a Y on a main route into the city. The fact is, it has been this way for over 100 years. It has been here since 1850 and Stewart Street (formerly Union Street) appears on the 1918 Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps in its present curved shape.
In the 1980s some of the side streets and the part of Stewart Street from Kratochwill to Wayne Ave were turned into one way streets.
There have been several meetings over the years to design a proposal for this junction but nothing acceptable was ever produced. So, in order to guarantee that work could be done on this intersection an application for $1.32 million in federal funds was submitted to the State of Ohio in 2004 with the following plan. This plan was devised sometime around 1964 when Dayton and Kettering were hot beds of employment in the region. Obviously this junction was considered a problem then and nothing has ever been done. The dark lines indicate the proposed changes. If you are familiar with this intersection then you know what this plan proposes. If you aren't, and that would be the majority of readers, you will have to wait for the next installment for more information!