DEVELOPMENT Officials: Funds for Route 62 far in future

Even if OK'd, the money wouldn't come in until at least 2009.
By D.A. WILKINSON
VINDICATOR SALEM BUREAU
SALEM -- Planners say the proposed U.S. Route 62 extension has high marks for state funding.
But that funding may be years away and local officials say that's a problem.
The latest proposal calls for the four-lane bypass to be built just north of Alliance, Sebring, and Beloit. The two-lane route runs south of, or though, those communities.
The bypass would connect with the existing Route 62 bypass in Salem, go north of Washingtonville and connect with state Route 11.
The Transportation Review Advisory Council that oversees state funding will hear comments on the plan as well as other projects Oct. 6 in Richfield, Ohio.
The bad news is that even if the project is approved, it would not receive Ohio Department of Transportation funding until 2009 at the earliest.
Paul Jaeger, the technical director for the Stark County Area Transportation Study, said the state has already committed its funds for the next four or five years.
Jaeger and planners from the Eastgate Regional Council of Governments spoke Tuesday to local officials at the Salem Community Center at the request of the Salem Area Chamber of Commerce.
Local officials said that that funding for the project was approved in the mid-1990s.
But Jaeger said ODOT was, "like the girl who couldn't say no."
ODOT, he said, promised funding to everyone, so TRAC was formed to organize the funding process.
ODOT's priority now, the planners said, is on traffic congestion and safety, not economic development.
Leaders express frustration
Salem Councilman A. Frederick Vogel said Salem can't attract manufacturing companies because of its lack of highway access.
"We're getting murdered now," Vogel told the planners.
Sebring Mayor John Smith and Smith Township Trustee Jerry Ritchie said they have the same problem.
The mayor told Salem's leaders, "You have to look at reality. You have to hound your state representatives. You have to go to [TRAC] meetings."
He pointed out that few of the community leaders at the meeting knew about the Oct. 6 session at which the Route 62 project will be discussed.
Ritchie said he first heard of the expansion project when he was 24. He's now 77, and he said he's not sure he's going to see it completed during his lifetime.
"It's shameful," he said.
Ritchie recalled that utility poles and homes had been moved back from the right of way many years ago when work began on the since stalled project.
Communities need new roads for economic development but can't have economic development without roads, Ritchie said.
"It's a chicken and egg situation," he said.
wilkinson@vindy.com