Sandusky City Commission Meeting - Cedar Fair Agreement

On October 25, the Sandusky City Commission considered an ordinance authorizing and directing the City Manager to enter into a memorandum of understanding with Cedar Fair. The ordinance passed by a vote of 7-0.

The presentation gets into some of the details of the new Causeway project:

• Improving and replacing the Cedar Point Causeway was by far Cedar Point's most important priority during negotiations.
• The City asked that the Causeway include an extension of the Sandusky Bay Pathway, creating pedestrian and bicycle access all the way to the Cedar Point Beach, with adequate bicycle parking.
• All electric utilities will be buried and water and sewer connections modernized.
• A new lane will be added. The lane will be reversible, allowing traffic to flow into the park in the morning and out of the park in the evening.

Presentation, discussion, and consideration of the ordinance:

Very nice presentation from the dying city of Sandusky

Beat me to it.

I am trying to understand how only 1 extra lane will help the flow of traffic. At the end of the day, CF sees an issue and they are looking to improve it. They see the complaints and continue to better the city.

I do think part of it is that eventually the situation bottlenecks anyways once you reach the main land. One extra lane of traffic helps a bit but there's only so much you can do right now without a larger infrastructure solution

I think the real bottleneck is the parking lot. An extra lane can only help empty the lot faster. From there, there's over a mile of road for the traffic to thin before getting to Cleveland Road.

TwistedWicker77 said:

I am trying to understand how only 1 extra lane will help the flow of traffic.

Think of it in terms of percentage increase: it's increasing capacity by 33-50% (increasing from 3 to 4 lanes, or from 2 to 3, depending on the configuration), which is significant.

For sure! I definitely understand that. I am referring to the bottlenecking that I mentioned before and BleauxJays just mentioned too. I am having a hard time seeing crowded Saturday traffic flow better because of only 1 extra lane on the causeway. Unless they can widen Cedar Point Drive and a big portion of Cleveland Rd., I just don’t see this being the fix they need.

Maybe we should look at this causeway expansion as an improvement rather than a cure.
I was reading an advice column about home improvement and remodeling and it cautioned against spending time and money on projects that are only needed occasionally. For instance, don’t build an en-suite for your mother in law who shows up once a year for a weekend around Christmas. I’d think we can agree that this traffic problem is only a *really* bad problem on what amounts to a few days out of a really long season that’s also, for that matter, only part of the entire year.
The pedestrian/bike lane seems curious but I’m sure it’s meant as a benefit to the city and an enticement to garner agreement for the plan. Pedestrians? Park visitors? Probably not so much. (Sorry, but the claim that an additional 2 mile hike when there’s 8 or 10 miles of walking in the park is no problem made me laugh out loud). But local cyclists will get much more use out of it, especially during off season and on nice days the park is closed. It’ll be a nice drive across that part of the bay and it sounds like it will include access to the free CP beach. Isn’t there already a well-used bike path along the lake there? Including land down to and around the sports complex?
Remember- locals don’t have much use for Cedar Point until there’s a benefit that doesn’t include thrill rides and huge crowds.

With an extra lane they could have up to four inbound lanes which would certainly help during peak traffic times once you get onto the causeway. For outbound traffic they could finally make a continuous right turn lane coming off the causeway and onto 1st street which that alone would greatly increase efficiency for exiting traffic if they didn't have to stop for the light. And as mentioned in the meeting, a lane could be dedicated to public transportation as well.

Walt's take is spot on, problem is at the parking lot itself. A few items that add to the "mess"...anyone notice the Bus Parking this past season/...not many buses at all, and for the near future that will probably remain the same as schools have all but eliminated field trips and they are slow to return.

Take away one bus (50 people on said bus), and now you have to have 20-25 cars to bring in the same fifty people. (average 2.5 per car).

Also, I feel not having a full staff of employees in the parking lot has led to not maximizing the number of cars able to park. With a parking staff, cars would be directed into spots and "packed together" better than the free flow that now exists.

Some will also argue but in today's society there appears to not be as much "car pooling" to places like Cedar Point. People have just gotten use to gas prices and want the convenience of being on their own time and not having to rely on others.

The "new" causeway/causeway improvements will help with the overall flow of traffic, in and out of the park.

The new toll booths truly helped with local traffic as traffic did not back up into town, like prior years (2020 excluded).

I only lived off Point for a partial season when the apartments first opened, but, with all of the employee housing out there now, I’d think that a dedicated employee bus lane would be helpful.

What's also needed, is better traffic control in the parking lot, especially at closing time. It's a free-for-all with cars driving diagonally from all directions and jamming up the exits, because just about the ONLY traffic control is at Perimeter Road. Everywhere else it's "sit there until somebody lets you in" and that can take a LONG time, especially if you have 4 cars coming from 4 different directions trying to edge into the 1 narrow space between cars as people are inching out of the lot. I'm surprised there aren't more accidents.

To the City of Sandusky, a roundabout at the corner of Cedar Point Drive & Cleveland Road, with the amount of traffic that travels through there from Mid May to Beginning of November, HORRIBLE idea. Plus nobody ever knows how to navigate them, and I know it’s just a movie but even in Paris France there’s confusion when the Griswold’s arrive.

RCMAC said:

(Sorry, but the claim that an additional 2 mile hike when there’s 8 or 10 miles of walking in the park is no problem made me laugh out loud).

Remember- locals don’t have much use for Cedar Point until there’s a benefit that doesn’t include thrill rides and huge crowds.

Glad I could give you a chuckle! ;-)

And count me as one local with plenty of use for Cedar Point. There are a few more where I came from. But you make a valid point.

The two summers I worked at the park I noticed and waited on quite a few locals who were regulars. Many of them lived on the Chausee.
The next two summers I worked somewhere else and lived in Sandusky. It took me a little by surprise, but it came quite clear that in town there was very little love for the park. Most people there never went, not even once a season.

Jake10- It’s ROUNDABOUND.

RCMAC- I can’t imagine living on the Chausee and not caring for Cedar Point.

It's true though. A lot of people live there for the property and not because of its proximity to Cedar Point. I spent about 10 years living in Sandusky off and on and I was surprised to see just how much dislike there was for the park and what it brings to the city each summer. This wasn't all locals but it was hard to find someone who loved the park or even visited annually.

Well, there are a lot of people local to Sandusky who complain about the influx of tourist traffic. And sure, it can be a pain sometimes to have to deal with - but it is part of living in Sandusky. (It isn't nearly as bad as some other popular vacation landing spots). As a non-native Sanduskian, I look at it as a perk to live close enough to the park to hop in the car in the summer and pop in for dinner and a show or a quick ride or two on some of the best rides in the world.

There are quite a few of us locals who frequent the park regularly and love all that it has to offer. There are many locals who don't go to the park ever. I can't be critical of their decision if thrill rides aren't their thing. Just because CP is the only thing most people outside of Erie County know of Sandusky - it doesn't mean that everyone in Sandusky lives here just to have close access to the park. Despite CED23's eulogy for the area, Sandusky has a lot to offer in addition to CP. Many folks choose to live here for other reasons.

Hating/avoiding the big tourist thing in your town that provides the reason for your town's existence is pretty widespread; I have had both a best friend and sister in law in Vegas and they would visit the strip only once a year and then only when I was there to drag them. Similarly, when I lived in Orlando my only foray to WDW was when someone was visiting.

I live in a tourist town and completely understand the disdain for the tourists. Still, the fact is that the local businesses make all their money in a short period of time. By mid August everyone is over it and craving winter. We have about 1000 local residents and around 10,000 on the island in the middle of the summer.