OCEAN CITY — At the request of the Mayor and Council, State Highway Administration (SHA) officials continue to explore ways to correct a troublesome intersection in the downtown area with poor sight lines for motorists, but a solution remains challenging.
The Mayor and Council on Tuesday met with SHA officials for a briefing of numerous projects planned in and around the resort area. City officials took the opportunity to bring to SHA’s attention a potential trouble spot at 2nd Street and Philadelphia Avenue where a signal box cabinet mounted to a utility pole blocks the view of southbound traffic for motorists attempting to make a right turn on red at the intersection.
Throughout the busy summer season, traffic often backs up at 2nd Street for vehicles heading east from St. Louis Avenue to Philadelphia Avenue to get back out to Route 50 or to access the downtown area. On any given summer night, the traffic stacks as motorists attempt to make a right turn on a red signal with a steady flow of traffic heading south on Philadelphia Avenue.
However, blocking their vision is the large signal cabinet owned by SHA attached to a utility pole on the north corner of the intersection that obstructs the view of motorists attempting to make a right turn. Resort officials on Tuesday broached the public safety issues with SHA officials, but Assistant District Engineer Dallas Baker said there were few options.
“The challenge is, we don’t have the right-of-way there to move it,” he said. “We could take the cabinet down lower and put it on the ground, but then it would obstruct the sidewalk.”
Baker said he understood the issue, but statistically the intersection had not seen many, if any, crashes.
“It’s an intersection where we’re not seeing a crash problem,” he said. “There are options other than making a right turn on a red signal there. The motorists heading east on 2nd Street could wait for the light to change.”
However, Mayor Rick Meehan, who utilizes the intersection often, said finding a way to move the signal cabinet from obstructing the sightlines for motorists needs to be addressed.
“If you are traveling south on St. Louis Avenue to get out to Route 50, this is the most common intersection,” he said. “I think this is our biggest obstruction to line of sight anywhere in Ocean City. I use it every day, sometimes several times a day. I know people who avoid it because of the obstruction in the line of sight.”
Meehan said despite SHA’s crash statistics for the intersection, there had to be a way to move the cabinet and eliminate the obstruction. He said the only other option might be eliminating right turns on a red signal at the intersection, but that would only exacerbate the traffic problem on most summer days and nights.
“Just because there haven’t been many crashes doesn’t mean it’s not a problem,” he said. “We need to do everything we can to minimize potential accidents and I know it’s a cliché, but this is really an accident waiting to happen.”
Councilman Matt James suggested simply rotating the cabinet in a different direction to minimize the obstruction. Other alternatives included moving the cabinet entirely to a different area near the traffic signal. Baker said SHA would continue to look for solutions.
“We’ll keep looking at it,” he said. “Maybe there is an opportunity to place it on an adjacent property, but that would require the permission of the property owner.”
Councilman Wayne Hartman said the council have recently made other decisions about obstructions to lines of sight for motorists.
“As a council, we’ve made decisions about obstructions and lines of sight,” he said. “In terms of being consistent with that, I think we need to address this. There has to be a better answer there because it’s very dangerous.”