Saturday, July 31, 2004
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- The Mahoning Valley can look forward to an ambitious program of road improvements designed to improve safety and alleviate congestion over the next several years.
The projects, some of which are already under construction, pertain largely to interstate highway and related improvements, road improvements that accommodate suburban growth, and repair and replacement of roadways and bridges.
Even though the Mahoning Valley has experienced population losses over the past 30 years, it's still important to maintain and improve the Valley's road system, said Kathleen Rodi, director of transportation at the Eastgate Regional Council of Governments.
"Your transportation system is your economic development," Rodi said. "If you don't maintain that, and you don't address safety and congestion issues, then the economic vitality will continue to erode," she added.
Rodi also noted that it's now common for families to own two or more vehicles and that the area has shopping malls and other attractions that draw outsiders, who depend on the roads to get to them.
Interstate highways
A large component of Eastgate's Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) is devoted to interstate highway and related projects. The four-year program, which is revised every two years, lists 132 projects funded by varying proportions of federal, state and local money.
All funds needed for all of the projects on the TIP have already been committed to them, said Ken Sympson, Eastgate's director of highway planning. Some of the projects on the TIP are highlighted on the accompanying map.
"We want to make sure that we address high volumes of traffic," Rodi said.
The largest highway improvement effort proposed for this area is a $200 million series of improvements to a 7.5-mile stretch of Interstate 80 from state Route 46 in Austintown to state Route 193 (Belmont Avenue) in Liberty.
That section of I-80, which has interchanges to I-680 and state Route 11, and will be joined by the 711 connector now under construction, is part of one of the country's major highway crossroads.
A report submitted to Eastgate earlier this year by URS Consultants of Cleveland identifies that section of I-80 as part of eastern Ohio's largest highway gateway.
Traffic volume
The average daily traffic count in 2001 on I-80 was 61,790 vehicles between Route 46 and the Route 11 and I-680 interchange. That figure was expected to grow 26 percent by 2025.
Trucks, which now comprise 23 percent of the traffic, are projected to grow to 28 percent of the traffic in 2025, the report says. Some 30 percent of the I-80 traffic is through traffic with no origin or destination in the Mahoning Valley, and much of that through traffic consists of long-distance trucks, the report says.
"I-80, including the Ohio Turnpike, has the largest volume of freight movements of any roadway in the state," according to the URS report.
A 2002 Ohio Department of Transportation freight study identified Trumbull County as one of the top 10 Ohio counties for origination or termination of truck shipments.
The URS report calls for replacement of pavement, major bridge rehabilitation and a series of on-and-off-ramp improvements designed for safer acceleration and merging of traffic. Such improvements are already under construction at the I-80 and Route 46 interchange.
Road widening
Just west of the URS study area, the TIP calls for replacement of two two-lane bridges carrying I-80 over Meander Reservoir with two three-lane structures. It also calls for widening I-80 to three lanes in each direction from the Ohio Turnpike to I-680.
"What's out there is outdated and undersized. For the volume of traffic, it's not the standard," Sympson said of the existing Meander bridges.
The first phase of the $74 million 711 connector is expected to open from Gypsy Lane to I-80 in the fall of 2005. The second phase, from Gypsy Lane to I-680, is expected to open a year later, Rodi said.
Besides the interstate-related projects, improvements designed to handle increased traffic generated by suburban growth are planned for U.S. Route 224 and Shields and Western Reserve roads.
Many motorists are now using Western Reserve Road as an alternative to the congested U.S. Route 224 as they go east and west in the Poland-Boardman-Canfield corridor, Sympson said.
Current work
Western Reserve Road is now closed from Tippecanoe to Hitchcock roads for lane widening, turn lane installation and removal of a hill at New Buffalo Road to improve sight distance.
Shields Road, which recently carried an average of 20,000 vehicles a day, is closed until Aug. 20 for replacement of the bridge over Mill Creek with a wider span. "That's astronomical. That's a large amount of vehicles for a two-lane road," Sympson said.
Eastgate's goal is to improve main roads wherever possible to encourage through traffic to stay on them and not meander through residential neighborhoods, Rodi said.
She said she hopes motorists will be patient during all the planned road construction and repair. "Roadway improvements are inconvenient, but, when we don't do them, it's very easy to say, 'Why don't you fix the road?,'" she concluded.