A Letter to the Editors,

Among the many instances of flawed logic in your editorial regarding accidents outside the Lytle Tunnel [August 20th, "Time to tame the trucks"], perhaps the easiest assertion to refute is this--"Ultimately, however, the best way to address safety at the Lytle Tunnel is also the quickest: enforce the speed limit."

The speed limit through Lytle Tunnel is 55 MPH. A truck going 45 MPH is not going to be cited for "speeding" unless an accident occurs, in which case enforcement comes too late.  Since all of these accidents are happening between 40 MPH and 50 MPH, or so we're told, there's nothing to enforce since the speed limit isn't being broken.  A 40MPH warning sign is not a speed limit.

Clearly that part of the road is poorly designed, and especially dangerous southbound. Your own reporter [Craig Garretson, August 17th] described how ODOT officials consider a 6-degree radius through the tunnel safe but then continued: "...as southbound trucks exit the tunnel, many speed up, thinking the worst is behind them. That, though, is where the bend sharpens to 8 degrees..."

A decreasing radius turn? At the EXIT of a tunnel? That then leads to an off-camber road surface? And all this to make room for a baseball stadium?  And you blame the truckers? They should be suing Hamilton County, and it's just a matter of time before one of them does. Let's just hope no one gets killed in the meantime. 

(I'm also shocked by this passage from your editorial: "Cincinnati residents understand what out-of-town truckers do not: the Lytle Tunnel, unlike most tunnels, was not built for the convenience of motorists.  It represents a rare instance in which civic imperatives triumphed over those of the highway builders." Are you actually trumpeting that the highway was NOT built to be safe for interstate motorists according to proper highway design criteria but was instead built to accommodate "civic imperatives" like a stadium, parks and museums? Don't you realize this is a federal interstate highway that has no business being so quirky that only the locals should know how to navigate it? It must be safe for everyone.)

Mike McCarthy, a NMA member since 1982
Walnut Hills