County administration must address U.S. 50/32 to prevent more deaths

To the editor:

I think most of us are aware of the tragic death of three people at the Radford Road and U.S. 50/32 in June 2024. Then another two deaths at nearby Fisher Road and 50/32 in 2025. What you might not know is that 2–3 people die on 50/32 in Athens County each year. The fact that this lack of safety continues year after year with no solution is a failure of the county administration.

The root cause of these deaths and the danger, in general, is that 50/32 is an interstate that has cross streets! Very deadly! The most obvious solution is to complete 50/32 as an interstate. Add on ramps and off ramps, eliminate cross streets with overpasses. This would eliminate the high death rate on this highway. Unfortunately, the cost of implementing this is beyond what the county can afford.

Consequently, we have to stop treating 50/32 as an interstate and start treating it like a city street which is what it is. In order to stop the death of 2–3 people each year we have to slow down the traffic flow through our county. I’m assuming the county administration has failed to do this because it would be politically unpopular.

Nonetheless, if we want to prevent the loss of life that we currently allow, we need to do something like the following:

• 1) Drop the speed from 60 to 50
• 2) Put in traffic lights where people die:
  • a. Radford Road
  • b. Ervin Road
  • c. Blackburn Road
  • d. 50/32 split
  • e. Coolville at the Nickel
  • f. Others as identified
• 3) Put flashing lights where less busy intersections have deaths (e.g., Route 32 and County 143 intersection)

The result of these actions would make Route 50/32 more like a street. It would be like Hamilton Road in Columbus. This solution is affordable and could be implemented piecemeal over time. It could be to that to maintain the unimpeded flow of traffic on 50/32, we accept the loss of life required to do that.

I hope that’s not true. I hope that county administration doesn’t worry about being elected and will take action. I hope what we don’t get is another worthless study that delays saving lives yet can be pointed to as a form of action.

Mike Chapman
Athens, Ohio