Who did Tylersville road tick off?

If Tylesville road was a child, it is the red headed step child of West Chester and Butler County. Tylersville road seems like the love child of a marriage between Colerain and Beechmont Avenue, the Frankenstein monsters of road design. Every attempt to fix the problem of access and traffic just leads to more as it fulfills it’s destiny to join the dark side.

Let’s move the businesses! They moved the business off of Tylersville and onto access roads. Great idea except they added more businesses, hospitals, etc and pumped in even more traffic!

Traffic lights O-Plenty! Because if one traffic light is a good traffic management, adding more would be awesome traffic management.

We’ll just widen the road! Okay, a couple of dedicated turn lanes. This should have opened up through traffic. Another great idea except the turn lanes are so short they block the thru traffic as they await a spot in a six car turn lane to Dudley Dr that can barely hold McDonald’s traffic.

Enter the TWLTLs! The design book said TWLTL’s (two-way left-turn lanes) would provide traffic relief and access to the businesses. The problem is that when you factor in the congestion caused by the under designed access roads fed by the (too) short turn lanes feeding more businesses than even Tylesville was designed for. Nobody in the TWLTL’s can turn left because traffic is backed up (sometimes because of dueling TWLTL’ers).

I live close to the businesses on Tylersville Rd but frankly, during the work day, I’d rather drive to the Cin Day McDonald’s or Skyline, choose Lowe’s over Home Depot and never, ever try and get gas there. The backup caused by the short turn lane to Dudley Dr extends back to and past the turn lane for the north I-75 ramp. Even if you have no desire to run the Tylersville gauntlet and just want to get on northbound I-75 and away from the mess, you are usually backed up in the left lane down to Meijer’s with the McDonald’s hopefuls. This of course causes excessive lane jumping into the right lane which is now really the only true thru lane. The result is that it’s not much better than the left lane since people try and use it to leapfrog and bypass the left lane backup to later dash in the left lane to get in the Dudley Dr left turn lane.

Down at the other end, turning left out of the Big Lots lot is almost an impossibility, unless you have nerves of steel, ice water running through your veins and a healthy V8 big block. A very large SUV seems intimidating enough to buy you a half second as the thru traffic seems temporarily distracted from their apparent mission to not allow any more cars on Tylersville. I’m grateful someone didn’t use the traffic light band aid because…there was always the Cox Rd exit, that is until they routed you back behind the building. I’m guessing because of the Kroger Plaza traffic which is about as dysfunctional as Tylersville Rd. The Big Lots parking lot is one small exit from becoming a traffic black hole….nothing escapes.

I could go on…it reminds me of an old nursery rhyme.

She swallowed the spider to catch the fly,
I don’t know why she swallowed the fly

Simply widening the road (2014 plan) will not solve the problems. Unless the feed roads and the overpass are also widened, we still have a funnel. And still, a recent study suggests the area has even more growth potential. Yea, right…better add an heliport or a subway cause you are not going to get any more cars to fit. I’m no traffic engineer but you don’t need a degree to determine that Tylesville Rd is a cobbled together series of band aids and it has only two possible futures.

A) It stays a mess…add a new band aid here and there with a dash of traffic police.
B) They widen it again and perform major Eastgate Blvd surgery.

Considering the state it’s in now, I really don’t see another solution other than “B” which will transform the business district of Tylersville Rd into a mini highway with on and off ramps a la Eastgate.

Maybe someone can share the traffic accident information for Tylersville Rd, I’ll wager it’s much higher than it’s richer and more popular cousin Union Center Blvd.

I welcome a response article from West Chester or Butler County.

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