This is part of Worthington Pulse's coverage of the Boundless apartment proposal in the June 25 meeting recap, alongside a breakdown of the proposal itself and a roundup of what residents told the Planning Commission.
No part of the Boundless apartment conversation drew more scrutiny than traffic. The developer's traffic study, prepared by Compass Infrastructure Group and dated May 6, 2026, concluded that the 246-unit project would have a "negligible" effect on the nearest major intersection. Several residents who spoke on June 25, some with planning and transportation backgrounds, called the study too narrow to trust. Here is what it measured, what it found, and where the disagreement lies.
What the study looked at
A Traffic Impact Study, as this kind of report is called, focused on two points: the existing signalized intersection of State Route 161 (East Dublin-Granville Road) and Proprietors Road, and a new single-lane roundabout the developer would build on Proprietors Road inside the Boundless site to serve the apartments. It analyzed the morning and evening rush hours for an opening year of 2026 and a "horizon" year of 2036, comparing conditions with and without the development. The city's third-party consultant, Arcadis, and Worthington City Engineer John Moorehead reviewed the work.
To estimate how much traffic the apartments would add, the consultants applied national Institute of Transportation Engineers trip-generation rates for low-rise multifamily housing to the 246 units. The underlying counts came from a single 12-hour traffic count taken at the intersection on December 17, 2025, with regional growth rates from the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission used to project the future years.
The core claim: new apartments would barely move the needle
Traffic engineers grade intersections on a Level of Service scale that runs from A (free-flowing) to F (failing). The study's central conclusion is that adding the Boundless apartments changes that grade almost imperceptibly. In the morning peak, the intersection earns an acceptable grade in every scenario. In the evening peak, the difference between "no build" and "build" is a fraction of a second of additional delay: roughly 62.1 seconds of average delay with the apartments versus 61.9 seconds without, in the opening-year evening rush. On that basis, the study concludes the development's effect on the intersection is negligible.
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The evening peak already strains, with or without the apartments
The study's more consequential finding points the other way: the SR-161 and Proprietors intersection already operates below the city's acceptable grade in the evening rush, and would continue to do so whether or not the apartments are built. Under today's signal timing, the study shows the evening peak sitting at Level of Service E in both the no-build and build cases, with the eastbound and westbound through movements dropping to F by 2036, again in both cases.
The study's proposed remedy is not a wider road or a new lane but a retiming of the existing traffic signal. With the signal splits re-optimized, while keeping the cycle length and coordination with the rest of the SR-161 corridor intact, the study shows the intersection returning to an acceptable Level of Service C in every scenario, including 2036 with the apartments built. In short, the report frames the evening congestion as a signal-timing problem the city can address, not a capacity problem the apartments create.
A roundabout inside the site
The apartments would be reached through a new single-lane roundabout built on Proprietors Road within the Boundless property. The study found that roundabout would operate at Level of Service A, the top grade, in every scenario it tested, including the busiest 2036 build condition.
Where residents pushed back
Several speakers on June 25 challenged the study's foundations rather than its arithmetic. A resident with a master's degree in city and transportation planning objected that the analysis rested on a single day of counts taken the week before Christmas, when school and commuter traffic is unusually light, and that it applied one generic trip rate to the whole development rather than accounting for its mix of one-, two-, and three-bedroom units. A retired architect, planner, and attorney questioned the reliance on signal-timing assumptions carried over from an earlier corridor study. And a resident who lives a quarter-mile east on SR-161 argued that studying a single intersection could not capture a corridor where he already waits minutes to make his morning turn.
As one resident put it:
"We're not saying no housing. We're saying no to this plan."
The objection was rarely to growth itself; it was to whether a study built on one December count at one intersection could stand in for the daily experience of driving the corridor. City staff, for their part, maintained that the development would have a negligible effect on the controlling intersection once the signal is retimed, and committed to refining the study before the City Council hearing on Monday, July 20.
The office building and the sidewalks
The study also looked, more briefly, at two related questions. Boundless is separately planning a new office building on its campus expected to add 65 to 80 jobs; the consultants estimated it would generate roughly two dozen trips in each rush hour, fewer than 10 at any single turning movement, and would not meaningfully change how the intersection operates. On walkability, the study found the nearest High Street destinations sit about nine-tenths of a mile from the site and the nearest elementary school about half a mile away, both at or beyond the distance most people will walk, and concluded that most trips to and from the apartments would be made by car.
This is one of three Worthington Pulse stories on the Boundless proposal. Read the others: Inside the Boundless Apartment Proposal and What Residents Told the Planning Commission. Or start with the June 25 meeting recap.