Road lines resurfaced for good this time

By Elise Franco

The Route 11 bridge project in Austintown is expected to be completed by late August.

AUSTINTOWN — The Mahoning County Engineer’s office wants motorists to know the lines on Mahoning Avenue are there to stay.

Marilyn Kenner, chief deputy county engineer, said in recent weeks the office has talked to people wondering why the road lines faded so quickly after they were painted last fall.

She said most motorists didn’t know those first lines were meant to be temporary.

“The striping that the people were complaining about was the temporary striping,” she said. “The contractor has since gone back and put the permanent thermo striping down.”

Kenner said the new lines were put down recently and will withstand the wear and tear of vehicles and weather elements. A $2.5 million county mill-and-fill of a five-mile stretch of Mahoning Avenue was completed last November.

The pavement itself should last between eight and 10 years before another resurfacing is necessary and at least five years before major potholes form, Kenner said.

She said to ensure the pavement lasts as long as possible, the county filled in any new cracks along the road.

“The road did experience some cracking, but that’s to be expected,” Kenner said. Some crack treatment was done this spring.

Kenner said though the county is finished with its portion of the major Mahoning Avenue construction, drivers will have to grin and bear it until the Ohio Department of Transportation’s bridge redecking over state Route 11 is finished. She said the county has no control over traffic flow, and ODOT controls the traffic signals on Mahoning from Bailey Road to Route 11.

“There’s is a lot of traffic on the road,” she said. “Because the bridge is down to two lanes I think that’s the biggest problem.”

Paula Putnam, ODOT District 4 representative, said ODOT is doing everything possible to make sure Mahoning Avenue stays open during the construction.

“To keep it open in the first place is what we did to alleviate the traffic problems,” she said. “The bridge offered enough space to work safely with cars on the road.”

Putnam said she knows traffic gets backed up near that area, but said if the bridge would have been closed, drivers would have been detoured miles out of the way.

“We wanted to make sure we didn’t hurt the people with what we were doing,” she said. “It would have been worse for them, and they would have hated it.”

Putnam said the project is on schedule and should be finished by the end of August. She said in the next few weeks crews will be focusing on several things.

“It’s down to one lane in each direction,” she said. “We’re working on the waterlines in the next few weeks, and we’re forming the lanes in the eastbound direction when weather permits.”

Once the bridge is completed, Putnam said ODOT crews will resurface up to 100 feet in each direction of the bridge to ensure the road is in good condition.

efranco@vindy.com