Citations skyrocket

The flashing lights of police vehicles have become a common sight in the East Main Street area of Portland.
There’s been no climb in the rate of serious crime, but rather a spike in semi drivers trying to use Main Street and others to get around the Water Street (Indiana 26) detour.
Portland Police Department officers wrote two citations in 2014 for semis being off of the assigned truck route. During the first month of work on Water Street in May, they wrote 22.
“The main problem is when they come down Main Street trying to get back onto Water,” said Nathan Springer, Portland’s police chief. “We’ve (written) that many tickets, but we’ve let a lot go, especially around school time when school was in (session), because buses have to come down Main. We get in a bottleneck, and we just have to get them backed up and get them out of there.”
Jay School Corporation buses were using Main and Orkney streets to reach East Elementary School before school let out May 29. When semis were also in the area, there was not room for both to pass.
And in most cases, the only way to get semis out of the way was to back them west down Main Street to the intersection with Wayne Street.
“We had quite a few when school was in session right there when the buses are trying to get down there,” said Springer. “And then it takes two officers if you’re going to back one up.”
One officer would direct the truck while the other would clear traffic behind it.
Since Water Street closed from Meridian Street to the eastern edge of the city on April 30, Main Street has been the route of choice for semi drivers attempting to avoid the long detour. Fifteen of the tickets that were written in May were either on Main Street or at one of its intersections. Five involved Wayne Street, and four were on Pierce Street or at its intersection with Main Street.
Springer said most drivers say they either didn’t see the detour signs, are lost or that their GPS directed them to Main Street.
“I had one guy be honest with me,” said Springer. “He was just in a hurry, trying to get around the detour.”
The assigned truck detour requires using Indiana 67 north and east across the state line, U.S. 29 and Ohio 49. Smaller vehicles can use county road 300 East and Division Road.
Jeremy Stocker, who has lived at 723 E. Main Street for 20 years, said semis were rare on his street in the past, but that has changed since the Water Street construction began. There’s a rut on his property between the street and sidewalk, damage left by a truck trying to navigate the narrow street.
“Usually you get two or three a day,” Stocker said of the recent increase in truck traffic. “And then they get down there and they try to back up.”
But not all of them have tried to back up.
Springer noted that he caught up to one semi after it had used Main and Pierce streets to reach Water, moving barricades along the way. The police chief finally tracked the vehicle down near the intersection of Indiana 26 and county road 100 East.
On the first day the street was closed, a semi traveled all the way down Water Street from the east to Meridian Street before being caught while attempting to move the final set of barricades.
The standard fine for a truck operating off of the assigned route is $25.
“We deal with trucks off truck route all the time, it’s just usually we’re lenient toward them a little bit,” said Springer. “We give out warnings instead of citations.”
But in the current situation, police are being stricter in an effort to reduce problems for construction crews and east side residents.
The $4.24 million Water Street project includes construction of a new street from near Meridian Street to the eastern city limits. The area will also get new water and sewer lines, sidewalks and lighting. Work is expected to be complete by Oct. 31.