The City of Tiffin Engineer's Office was recently notified by the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) that it has been selected to receive up to $437,725 in funding from the Highway Safety Improvement Program's - Abbreviated Safety funding for access management and signal upgrades within and near the intersection of North Washington Street (SR 100), North Sandusky Street (SR 53) and East and West Davis Streets, otherwise known as Six's Corners. These funds will be combined with the recently awarded Small Cities Program funding ($1,658,961) and recently awarded Urban Paving funding ($500,000) for a combined total of $2,596,686 to cover a project with an estimated construction cost of $2,764,931. With this award, since 2019, the City Engineer's Office has now successfully leveraged nearly $12.5 million in local, state, and federal grant funding for community infrastructure projects.
Improvements proposed with the Abbreviated Safety funding include pedestrian and traffic signal upgrades scoped to install ADA compliant pedestrian signals and mast arm/strain pole traffic signal assemblies with optically programmed vehicular signal heads. In addition to the proposed signal upgrades, the Abbreviated Safety funding will also propose access management improvements within the right of way of several properties located within or near the Six's Corners intersection. These improvements will be combined with the previously funded road improvements which include the full depth reconstruction of North Sandusky Street between Hall Street and Tomb Street and the resurfacing of North Sandusky Street north of Tomb Street to the city's northerly corporation limits. Design of this project is scheduled to begin in 2024 with construction expected to begin in 2026.
The purpose of the Highway Safety Improvement Program's - Abbreviated Safety funding is to quickly implement safety improvements at locations with crash patterns and safety concerns. Applications may be submitted to this program quarterly for projects estimated to cost under $500,000 that propose proven safety countermeasures for locations that experience on average a minimum of 3 crashes per year.
Per information obtained from the Ohio Department of Transportation's website, the average daily traffic volume within the Six's Corners intersection exceeds 9500 vehicles per day and since 2019 there have been a total of 35 traffic related accidents within or near the intersection.
City Engineer Matt Watson stated "I thank ODOT for their continued support and partnership along with the assistance they provided with this grant application. These funds were pivotal in allowing the City of Tiffin to address the necessary safety improvements at one of our most congested and awkwardly configured intersections. In addition, the timing of these funds cannot be any more beneficial to our community as we can now implement one large Sandusky Street project to limit the impact these needed improvements will have on both commerce and our residents."