Last year they answered 122 calls there for everything from slide-offs to crashes, and most of them occurred during wet weather. Fifteen incidents happened there in December alone, Cleaveland said.
The problems began when the state repaved the interchange in 2010 and the road surface became too slick too soon, but no one can say for sure why that happened. The state hopes a recent light grooving of the pavement will improve traction on the ramps and exits.
Mad River Twp. Fire and EMS/Enon responded to nearly half of the patrol’s 2011 runs to the interchange, said Chief David Leist.
“Every time there’s precipitation, we have a problem there,” Cleaveland said.
The interchange is crash prone, Cleaveland said. But there haven’t been any fatal crashes there from 2009 to 2011.
Cleaveland blamed the I-70/I-675 cloverleaf design, slick pavement during inclement weather and drivers going too fast for the high number of incidents.
“The ultimate cause (of crashes), is (motorists) carrying too much speed into the ramps,” he said.
Crashes
In 2009, 26 crashes occurred there, nearly all of them during wet weather, according to data from the Ohio Department of Public Safety.
Then in 2010, the state repaved the interchange as part of a $557,693 project on I-70 from the Clark and Montgomery county lines to Enon Road.
The number of crashes then dropped slightly to 23, with about 70 percent of them happening during wet weather.
But then last year, 36 accidents occurred there, again nearly all of them during rain or snow.
By comparison, at I-70 and U.S. 68 — another Clark County cloverleaf interchange — one of two crashes reported in 2010 and about 37 percent reported in 2011 happened on wet pavement, according to ODPS data.
About 105,000 vehicles travel the I-70/U.S. 68 interchange daily, according to ODOT.
New pavement is considered to have good traction, Ohio Department of Transportation spokesman Steve Faulkner said, and is likely the reason for the decline in crashes from 2009 to 2010.
Slick pavement
But a recent Ohio Department of Transportation skid test at I-70/I-675 confirmed what emergency responders have known for some time — the pavement there was slicker than it should be.
Determining why the roadway became so slick so soon after repaving isn’t an exact science. There are many contributing factors, Faulkner said, such as roadways becoming “polished” over time as tires meet pavement and traction decreases.
So crews performed a micro-mill on the road surface the last week of December.
Micro-milling lightly grooves the roadway and should improve traction on the ramps, Faulkner said. No micro-milling was conducted after the 2010 repaving, as is policy on new pavement.
Early effects of last year’s micro-milling appear to have decreased crashes and slide-offs so far, Cleaveland said.
Comparing the interchange to other county and state interchanges in terms of safety is futile, Faulkner said.
“There really is no way to compare this intersection to others in the state given the inability to quantify various highway interchange construction designs, weather conditions, pavement types and topography,” he said. “One must (also) consider ... a motorist’s reaction time, alertness and speed, as well as a vehicle’s braking system, and tire inflation, pressure and tread.”
Costs
The state patrol’s response numbers align closely with the days of measurable precipitation recorded last year by the National Weather Service.
Weather instruments in Dayton — the closest to the interchange — recorded 152 days of precipitation and 194 days of combined measurable and trace precipitation in 2011, said meteorologist Mike Kurz. Those figures are for the Dayton area and paint only a close picture of days with precipitation at the interchange.
One recent memorable day for Leist was the rainy Nov. 22 when his department responded to seven crashes and recalled that OSP responded to five more.
“We would be on one ramp and another crash would happen on another ramp,” he said.
The approximately 65 runs the fire department made to the area in 2011 cost Mad River and Enon taxpayers about $5,620 in manpower, fuel and other minor expenses, Leist said. More was spent by Bethel Twp. Fire and EMS on mutual aid responses.
The amount ODOT spent applying a micro-mill to ramps and exits Dec. 28 and 29 was unavailable because ODOT had not yet received the bill for the rental of the micro-mill machine, Faulkner said.
But ODOT did spend more than $16,144 replacing and repairing 15 light poles that were knocked down as a result of crashes and slide-offs last year, he said.
Scott Schmid is director of the Clark County Transportation Coordination Committee. He said good driving behaviors remain the most important factor.
“From my experience in looking at crash data over the past few years, the best advice is still for drivers to slow down, stay attentive, drive defensively and avoid distracted driving at all times and in all weather conditions,” Schmid said.
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