Saturday, January 21, 2006
With the $75.1 million Meander Reservoir twin bridges project going to bid next month, the Mahoning Valley's attention should now turn to the long-discussed Hubbard Arterial Highway, commonly referred to as the Hubbard expressway. The Federal Highway Administration is to decide by summer at the latest if the four-lane highway should be built.
A solid show of support for the $74 million project would go a long way toward persuading the bureaucrats in Washington that the return on investment would be enormous. The arterial highway would connect Youngstown's East Side to Bell-Wick Road in Hubbard Township and onto Interstate 80. Large tracts of land would be opened up for industrial development.
The environmental impact study being conducted by URS will be completed shortly and after review by the Eastgate Council of Governments will be sent to the Federal Highway Administration. If it is approved, the next challenge would be to secure the money for final engineering and construction.
"It's all about money and politics," Eric W. Smith, a vice president of URS, has told members of Eastgate COG.
And that's where a push by the Valley, especially the elected officials and business leaders, will make a difference.
The Meander Reservoir bridges project should serve as a guide. As we pointed out last June, the long battle against the Ohio Department of Transportation over the issue of protecting the reservoir as a source of drinking water was successful because local government officials and community leaders, led by Austintown Fire Chief Andrew Frost, would not take no for an answer.
So today, the plans require the existing bridges to be replaced by significantly wider structures, with a 10-foot to 12-foot shoulder for each, a staging area for emergency vehicles at the end of one bridge and a chemical spill containment system along the side of the bridges.
The spill containment system will provide controlled drainage so that any chemical spilled would flow into a ditch, giving emergency crews 30 minutes to contain it before the chemical filtered into the reservoir.
The Meander Reservoir is a source of drinking water for 300 users in Mahoning and Trumbull counties.
Construction of the new bridges is scheduled to begin in early spring and take about three years to complete.
Advisory council
This week, the state Transportation Review Advisory Council, the arm of the Ohio Department of Transportation that decides which highway projects get funded for construction, gave the green light to ODOT to seek bids.
Liberty Township Administrator Patrick J. Ungaro, a former mayor of Youngstown, serves on TRAC -- he was appointed by former Gov. George V. Voinovich and reappointed by Gov. Bob Taft -- and has been instrumental in securing about $175 million in funding for highway projects in the Valley. The now opened 711 connector got off the drawing board after Ungaro snagged $50 million in state funding to be added to the $25 million former Congressman James A. Traficant Jr. secured from Washington.
Ungaro also persuaded his colleagues on TRAC to approve $12.3 million for the Interstate 80-state Route 46 interchange in Austintown.
In addition to the Meander Reservoir and the Hubbard Arterial Highway, for which $2.7 million has been earmarked for final design, TRAC this week approved funding for preliminary engineering for the $147.7 million addition of a third lane on I-80 in Mahoning and Trumbull counties from I-680 and state Route 11 to state Route 193 and improvements to interchanges. The engineering work is expected to begin in 2010.
The Hubbard expressway project has received the support of U.S. Reps. Tim Ryan of Niles, D-17th, and Ted Strickland of Lisbon, D-6th, which will help in making the case to the Federal Highway Administration. They should lead the charge.