ELLSWORTH — The Village of Ellsworth Street and Sidewalk Committee heard from a handful of the village’s bus drivers during June 27 discussions of the reduction of Woodworth Street’s width as part of the Grant and Piety Street improvements.

The committee eventually took action to keep the street at the same dimensions it currently is during the project, granted that it can meet ADA requirements.

With St. Francis located on Woodworth Street, worries about the potential bus back-up before and after school, parking, tight turn radius and more caused the committee to decide on seeking the same dimensions.

The current width of the street is 50 feet, with the proposed redesign coming in at 43 feet and a tapering at the South Chestnut and Woodworth intersection creating the narrowest point of 38 feet. Village documents state the tapering is necessary due to the sidewalk ramp. The Woodworth Street proposal spans from South Grant Street to South Chestnut Street.

Resident and bus driver Randy Brickner wanted to know why the narrowing was proposed, given a perceived multitude of potential issues.

“Why do we want it this way?” Brickner said. “Why can’t we leave it as wide as it was and leave the parking spaces, leave the areas for safety and what have you, we won’t have a bottleneck with the buses.”

Village Administrator/Clerk-Treasurer Brad Roy shared reasons from a previous committee discussion that caused the proposed narrowing which include standardization with Grant and Piety widths and lowering costs.

Another reason mentioned multiple times was the belief that a narrower road would slow traffic down to avoid safety concerns.

Ellsworth Community School District Transportation Director Michael Chisholm said five of the district’s 23 bus drivers were in attendance for the meeting, and asked the village to take into account their concerns.

“When there’s cars parked on both sides of the street, two buses can’t meet each other. One has to pull over and wait for the other one,” Chisholm said. “We really appreciate the wider street there in front of the school to load.”

Bus drivers in the district have short windows of time to drop off students, which some of the bus drivers in attendance were concerned they could no longer meet. Brickner said the wide tail swing of a bus will cause them to take longer to make the turns off of Woodworth. Due to this, Brickner said it will become a challenge to meet these drop-off windows with a “bottleneck” holding them up.

“You can’t push us in a… 16 and 21-foot spot and expect to have a car come around the corner that isn’t gonna stop there,” Brickner said. “We’re gonna be dead there for minutes.”

Brickner also said it will be difficult to get a fire department ladder truck down the street if it is narrowed, bringing a fire safety hazard.

Brickner questioned the transparency from the village, citing previous agendas for the project that mention Grant and Piety Street improvements, but fail to mention Woodworth and Strickland.

“You stated for your whole village board that you’ve got to earn trust back,” Brickner said. “It is not happening when you hide this stuff. This is plain and simple you guys, take that for what it’s worth.”

Brickner said when he tried discussing Strickland and Woodworth at a previous meeting he was “shot right down” because it was not an agenda item.

The narrowing of the street would also decrease parking, which resident Norma Radke said goes against the village’s value of being welcoming.

With the public’s input taken into consideration, the three committee members decided against the narrowing.

Special Village Board Meeting

During the Special Village Board meeting that followed the committee meeting, the board approved alcohol licenses for Family Dollar, Speedway and Holiday, and tobacco licenses for Family Dollar and Speedway.