‘Hurry up and fix it before someone gets killed’: East Cleveland resident begs city to take down dangerous barriers

EAST CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) - Some are calling it an accident waiting to happen...

The problem stems from barriers set up in the middle of a busy road.

They force drivers into oncoming traffic.

“It’s completely unsafe and it’s completely unacceptable,” said a concerned East Cleveland resident, who didn’t want to share his name.

An East Cleveland resident who drives through Euclid Avenue every day is fed up.

He says barriers set up at the intersection of Lee Road and Chapman Avenue are putting people’s lives at risk.

“This has been like this long enough and nobody in this community is standing up for this so somebody had to come forward and do something about it,” he said.

Drivers headed east are forced into oncoming traffic just to get by orange barriers and cones.

They have to hope those headed their way aren’t turning, because if they are, they’re sharing the same lane, going opposite directions.

It’s bad enough, the man we spoke to says he’s switched his daily route to get his mom from work.

“My mom is elderly,” he said. “I don’t want her to have a heart attack going to work from a head-on collison.”

Even worse, this concerned resident says these cones have been here for more than a year.

He blames the city and has a message for city hall.

“Hurry up and fix it before someone gets killed, and they come looking for you guys,” he said.

So that’s where we started.

The office secretary referred us to the chief of police.

He didn’t return our call, so we left a message.

We also tried calling the mayor’s office to see if someone else could help us, but no one answered.

Since this story aired, we heard from the former chair of the General Services and Administration Committee and current Councilor at Large, Patricia Blochowiak.

She says the cones are up because of a water leak that still hasn’t been repaired.

We’ll be following up with the city to see when it will finally get fixed.

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