Madisonville residents worry new commercial garage could be traffic nightmare

Stewart Avenue sees a daily flux of pedestrians, bicyclists and children at play. While Ann Boland said speeding cars already threaten the safety of the residential street, she now worries a new six-story concrete structure will only exacerbate the danger.

"It's just going to be scary," she said. "We have no curbs. It's a relatively narrow street."

The Madisonville grandmother spoke with WCPO Thursday, standing in front of the source of her concern.

Currently, it's an asphalt lot, sporting hundreds of parking spaces for Medpace employees, but that is expected to change next month when the company breaks ground on a new parking garage.

Medpace is a clinical research company headquartered in Madisonville. It's the neighborhood's largest employer.

Boland said she and her neighbors are upset — not because of the company, which they love for bringing in "lots of jobs to the city" — but because of the increased traffic.

The company's main entrance is off Red Bank Road, a major thoroughfare leading to and from the highway. However, the property is bordered by residential streets like Stewart Avenue, which is where many employees access the parking lot.

"On a random Thursday from 4:45-5:30 p.m., we counted 150 cars exit from Medpace onto Stewart Avenue," Boland said.

Current traffic includes frequent fire and ambulance runs to St. Paul Village, a 65 and older community, children walking to Parker School, school buses, Metro Access buses, bicyclists, dog walkers and through traffic, Boland said.

"We are now seeing semi trucks coming through. Two of my handicapped neighbors have walked out to their cars being totaled," she said. "At least three neighbors have been injured in car accidents on Stewart."

When the garage is completed, Boland said her street won't be the only one seeing more cars. Employees will be able to access the structure from an entrance on Covington Avenue, which doesn't currently exist for the surface lot.

"Which means my house is at the intersection of where 1,100 —approximately 1,100 — additional cars will be coming out," one of Boland's neighbors said at a community meeting Thursday night.

Boland organized it after what she felt was a disappointing meeting held by Medpace the week before. The company only held one after repeated pressure by Madisonville Community Council, she said.

"About a dozen residents met with Medpace during business hours, so a lot of neighbors could not come to that meeting," Boland said. "There's 150 residents that are in this immediate area that will be adversely affected by the increased traffic. Unfortunately, neither the city nor Medpace reached out to any of us immediate neighbors until we insisted on a meeting."

That's the first time they learned of the construction start time, she said. Other details remain slim.

"They did not tell us where all these cars will be during that construction, nor how long that construction will last," Boland said.

WCPO reached out to Medpace for comment Thursday. The Facilities department said they didn't view neighbors as angry over the project and that their recent community meeting successfully addressed concerns — one of those being traffic backup on Stewart Avenue.

The Facilities department told WCPO that most of their employees do not leave the property by way of Stewart, but they did reach an agreement with the city to install a traffic light at the corner of Medpace Way and Red Bank Road to provide employees another direct access point to the highway.

The Facilities department said Medpace was not invited to Boland's meeting on Thursday.

"We encourage all of these cars, hundreds a day, to utilize (Red Bank Road and Medpace Way) to enter and exit their place of work," Boland said.

At the meeting's conclusion, neighbors voted to formally ask the city and Medpace to prohibit any employee parking in residential areas during the garage's construction, including on Stewart. They are also asking for no construction vehicles to use residential roads during construction, and that during business hours all garage entrances and exits in residential areas will be closed with traffic routed to Medpace Way and Red Bank Road.

"We just don't need more traffic on this street," said Boland.