Some Fairfield Township residents are asking the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) to upgrade an intersection on a state highway. They told 21 News Thursday they're concerned about safety, as they regularly see drivers speed and ignore stop signs.
Luke Shelenberger, who has lived at the intersection of Signal Road and State Route 558 since 2020, said it didn’t take long for him to realize after moving in that the intersection was dangerous.
“I can remember just sitting around with some friends, telling them about the intersection, and watching cars run straight through the stop sign at 3:00 in the afternoon,” Shelenberger told 21 News.
He said he and other neighbors have reached out to ODOT about their concerns, but feels not enough has been done. Morgan Eibel, regional public information officer for ODOT, told 21 News Thursday the state does not currently have plans to upgrade the intersection, but continues to monitor it, and changes are possible in the future — possibly including a four-way stop.
The crossroads is a four-way intersection but currently only a three-way stop, because SR 558 has a stop sign westbound and not eastbound. Eibel explained that this is due to poor sight conditions when travelling south on Signal Road, but only with regard to cars approaching in the westbound lanes.
Residents say they’ve seen many crashes there over the years, as recently as last week. However, ODOT’s official count is only one crash between January 2021 and May 2025. The discrepancy comes because ODOT only counts crashes within 500 feet of the intersection.
After that one crash, which happened in 2023, the state added a second westbound stop sign and made the signs bigger. ODOT also changed the signage below all the stop signs to more clearly communicate that eastbound traffic does not stop.
“That was the best [of] what we could do to improve safety at that intersection, based on the crash data,” Eibel told 21 News.
Shelenberger and other neighbors aren’t satisfied with that.
“It's inherently dangerous,” he said. “We try to keep the kids out back, but you know, that's not always possible.”
The residents have asked ODOT for several measures, like red flashing lights on the stop signs, or guardrails. But at the moment, Eibel said the site doesn’t qualify for any of those measures.
“Specifically, when it comes to flashing stop signs, we do have a policy that we follow for that,” Eibel said. “If there are nine or more crashes on an ODOT-maintained road within a three-year period that are running-a-stop-sign-related, then that's when we would look at adding flashing stop signs.”
“There might be other situations where, you know, sight distance is an issue, or fog and things like that play a factor, but specifically that is what we look at,” she added. Eibel also explained there are similarly specific criteria about slope and roadside hazards to qualify for a guardrail.
Many of the incidents Shelenberger and other neighbors told 21 News about involved drivers willfully ignoring the speed limit and stop signs, which Eibel also said ODOT has limited control over.
“[If] speed is an issue or not abiding by these stop signs is an issue we always encourage motorists and residents to reach out to local law enforcement,” Eibel said. “They're the ones that can enforce the law. … Certain things are out of our control.”
Shelenberger said he would like to see a stronger police presence at the intersection, specifically state troopers.
“If we could have somebody stop here more often, and then people are aware that there's a police presence, they might follow the rules a little bit better,” he said.