WILMINGTON — City officials say they are correcting mistakes made this week on the Rombach Avenue project.
Mayor John Stanforth and Safety/Service Brian Shidaker told the News Journal on Wednesday afternoon that road delineators (traffic lane control sticks) that were being placed on Rombach Avenue by contractors will be removed.
Stanforth advised he asked the installers to stop the process.
“We realized we made a mistake,” said Stanforth. “Our engineer is going to draw up something tonight (Wednesday) so in the morning there’s going to be some left turns.”
Stanforth told the News Journal he found out about the delineators after receiving a call from a farmer wondering how he was going to get his combine in town.
“Sure enough, the combine had already run over part of (the delineators),” said Stanforth.
City officials realized that the delineators being installed were causing people to not be able to make left turns into businesses on the street — such as Skyline Chili and the Duke & Duchess shop.
Stanforth said semi-truck drivers from Hood Packaging Corporation will also still be able to turn left out onto Rombach.
They also realized they wouldn’t be able to make a left turn into the city’s safety center on Rombach.
Stanforth added this does create another problem due to the thermoplastic road marker painters already off the job. This means the center stripes would have to be repainted in the fall and the thermoplastic would get put in next year.
“We’re trying to make the best of a bad situation,” said Stanforth.
In regards to combine drivers, he added the city would be working to move the curbs by Skyline back to help farmers drive their combines in what is now the grassy area.
There will be still some delineators placed on Rombach Avenue, though.
“We’re only going to do it where we people are violating the no-turn signs,” said Stanforth.
A short section of them will be placed by the pedestrian island by Dairy Queen to prevent left turns. Another section will be placed in front of Wendy’s to protect pedestrians.
Shidaker told the News Journal, they’ve been getting numerous reports of people still turning left out of Wendy’s.
Another delineator spot would be put up to prevent people from turning left out of Denver Williams Park.
