City of Tiffin to improve crossing safety with grant money

The City of Tiffin has been awarded a $15,000 grant from the White Family Charitable Fund of the Tiffin Community Foundation for a project to improve pedestrian safety, particularly for children walking or biking to Krout School, at the intersection of Glenn and Melmore Streets.

Tiffin Mayor Aaron Montz was thankful for the award. “Thanks to the White Family and the Tiffin Community Foundation, we were able to address this safety concern and make improvements to the crossing, providing a safer route for school children and other pedestrians.”

Concerns about the intersection were brought to Tiffin City Council and the Traffic Safety Committee by residents. The Traffic Safety Committee determined that an alternative approach to improving the safety at the crossing, rather than reinstalling a traffic signal, would be to install rapid flashing beacons.

Flashing beacons (non-rapid flashing) are already currently being installed throughout the city as part of the on-going Safe Routes to School Project. The proposed Rapid Flashing Beacons are activated by the user of the crosswalk.  The user pushes a button prior to crossing which activates flashing lights in each direction of travel alerting the motorists that someone may be in the crosswalk and that they should yield or stop.  This is very common practice that is being used, in many other similar situations, throughout the country, in order to improve safety along state routes where crossings may need to exist without the operation of a traffic signal.

The City Engineer’s Office developed a plan that improved the safety and ADA accessibility of the location, including the installation of two rapid flashing beacons (one at the intersection of Melmore and Warren Streets and one at the intersection of Glenn and Warren Streets), relocating the existing crosswalk and curb ramps from the intersection of Glenn and Melmore Streets to a location on Melmore Street between the intersections of Melmore and Warren Streets and Melmore and Glenn Streets, along with installing ladder style crosswalk striping in replacement of the existing typical standard style crosswalk.

The City Engineer’s Office submitted a grant application for and received $15,000 from the White Family Charitable Fund, managed by the Tiffin Community Foundation, to cover the full amount of the engineer’s estimate of the project. This grant is made possible by the generosity of the late Sherman and Virginia White, residents of the City of Tiffin, who created a trust fund to support charitable endeavors in their community. Work will begin early this spring, scheduled to be completed tentatively before the end of the 2018-2019 school year.