City eyes Heinen’s traffic improvements

by Judy Stringer

Feb. 7 city council meeting

Hudson City Manager Thom Sheridan provided a brief update on proposed Clinton Street traffic adjustments near the intersection of Library Street and the rear, or west, driveway for Heinen’s.

Sheridan said that once Summit County finishes installing a new sanitary sewer line along Owen Brown Street and the city completes some planned reconstruction there, Hudson will turn its attention to needed traffic flow improvements around the downtown Heinen’s.

Later this year, Sheridan anticipates the city will begin a project to close the west driveway for Heinen’s – closest to the townhomes – and create a three-lane driveway where the store’s east entrance is currently located. One lane of that new driveway will be an entrance and the other two will be exits.

A traffic flow change to one-way on Clinton will also be considered to increase safety, according to Sheridan.

Council members Karen Heater and Chris Banweg said several residents of the Clinton Street townhomes have expressed concerns about the area. The Library Street intersection is slightly offset from the Heinen’s west driveway.

“It’s almost like a four-way intersection, and people get confused going in and out of the parking lot, which has caused some more dangerous interactions between vehicles trying to turn in and out of there,” Banweg said.

He added that there are also sight distance concerns for exiting vehicles as cars are often parked along Clinton.

The council’s consent agenda, which passed 6-0, included approval for the city to bid on a contract for Phase 2 of the ongoing Veteran’s Trail project. The segment of the multi-purpose trail in this bid is off-road along Valley View Road between Hunting Hollow Drive and state Route 91, and on-road along Hunting Hollow.

It also approved a $76,000 contract with TMS Engineering Inc. of Twinsburg related to the redesign of a traffic signal improvement plan the firm completed for the city in 2022. The project includes the installation of 14 adaptive traffic lights, in which signal timing changes based on actual traffic demands. The 2022 project design was completed before Hudson received a $2.3-million grant from the Akron Metropolitan Area Transportation Study to put toward the signaling upgrades. To secure that funding, the design must be “updated to state and federal standards,” according to the resolution. ∞