By Steve Kemme
Enquirer staff writer

COLUMBIA TWP. - Some residents and business owners are unhappy about a planned $3 million project to widen a section of Wooster Pike from four to five lanes.

They complain that having the middle lane serve as a two-way left-turn lane would create a more dangerous situation.

"It would be what you could call a suicide lane," said Susan Olson, who lives in a subdivision off Wooster. "It would increase the potential for head-on collisions and sideswipes."

The project's critics also say adding a fifth lane from Newtown Road to Miami Run, just east of Mariemont, would take valuable parking lot space from businesses and increase traffic congestion and noise.

The Ohio Department of Transportation is doing this project because of the high number of traffic accidents in that stretch of Wooster Pike. The state thinks a two-way turn lane will decrease accidents.

During the past four years, 35-40 wrecks a year have occurred there, said Jay Hamilton, a traffic and planning engineer at the department's District 8 office in Lebanon.

He said two-way left-turn lanes have proven over the years to be safe. "Seldom do you have collisions in those lanes," he said.

The widening will require 2 to 6 feet of frontage on each side of Wooster, Hamilton said.

Construction will begin in 2006 and could be completed before the end of that year, he said.

Karl Rill said his small office building at Wooster and Newtown Road will lose its front entrance if the department proceeds.

"That's where all our customers come in," he said. "The traffic noise level would be so high that it would make our front offices unusable."

Because of Rill's concerns, transportation officials are considering altering or eliminating some of their plans.

Charles Garner, owner of the Plainville Barbershop, said the state could make that stretch of Wooster safer by making small improvements in the traffic signal setup that would cause more breaks in traffic for motorists wanting to turn onto Wooster.

"We don't need a widened Wooster Pike," he said.

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E-mail skemme@enquirer.com