Tim Toman, owner of Capps Pizza and Capps Tavern in Leroy Township, can see the finish line. That finish line being the end to a busy construction season near his business, and more importantly, to the completion of Lake County’s first roundabout, which is running two weeks ahead of schedule.
Toman’s business at 12830 Painesville-Warren Road is one of three businesses in Leroy Township’s most commercialized intersection that has had to endure more than three months of construction beginning June 24.
The project, costing a little more than $1.46 million, aims to turn the five-road intersection often called ‘5-Points,’ into a roundabout.
The roundabout is a one-lane circle with four entries and exits with a ring of brick-patterned concrete stretching 10 feet wide inside the circle to give large trucks extra room to move. The remainder of the circle is filled with grass.
Traffic circles, like Cobblestone Circle in Mentor, differ from roundabouts because they use stop signs to direct entering traffic and are larger in diameter, allowing vehicles to circulate and exit faster.
The Roundabout in Leroy, however, has a speed limit of 25 mph. Advisory signs are posted before the roundabout telling motorists to slow down from speed limits as high as 55 miles per hour.
The project’s contractor, Mentor-based JTO Inc., has finished constructing the roundabout itself and is now working on phase four of the project that merges Huntoon Road and Painesville-Warren Road together.
The roundabout’s original completion date is scheduled for Nov. 15.
‘Right now we plan to get crews out by the end of October,’ said Traci Salkiewicz, a traffic engineer at the Lake County Engineer’s Office
She said the project is also on budget, but won’t have figures available until completion.
Toman is eager for when that happens. He said he hasn’t noticed any decreased traffic at either of his connected businesses, but said the first three phases have had little impact on access compared with the fourth phase, which blocks any vehicles wanting to access Capps directly from the side of the roundabout.
Instead, a car needs to take Vrooman Road from the roundabout to Carter Road to reach the accessible side of Capps.
The Subway restaurant at 12865 Painesville-Warren Road has the opposite situation. The only vehicles that can access it right now are the ones on the side of the roundabout.
Kenneth Blakeley, manager of the family-owned Subway restaurant, said his business has lost two-thirds of its traffic since construction began. He said it’s because people don’t know whether they’re open or not and even if they do, they’re not sure how to access its parking lot.
Nevertheless, Blakeley said he likes the aesthetics of the new streets and is happy with the work JTO has done. He said the work is going to add ‘a nice clean atmosphere to the area.’
Toman shares the same excitement over the changes taking form at the intersection. He said he thinks the roundabout is going to reduce the number of crashes and near misses on the five-road intersection that used to have six stop signs to direct traffic through the fast-moving Route 86.
‘I already hear people who were previously against it telling me they like the roundabout,’ Toman said. ‘It’s so easy. Bam bam. You jump in and you jump out.’
Janet Dodaro, a Leroy resident who lives near the roundabout on Vrooman Road, isn’t convinced it’s as safe as the Lake County Engineer’s office and others say it is.
‘The first week they opened up the circle, I had three near misses because people don’t understand the circle has the right-of-way and yield means yield,’ Dodaro said.
