Slow go on I-680 ahead summer on I-680
By Denise Dick
Traffic will be reduced to one lane between South Avenue and Route 224 to complete a $6.9M repaving project.
YOUNGSTOWN — If you drive Interstate 680 between South Avenue and U.S. Route 224, your daily commute could get a little longer beginning next week.
Ohio Department of Transportation District 4 will begin resurfacing that stretch of road Tuesday.
“It’s been at least 10 years since I-680 was resurfaced,” said Paula Putnam, an ODOT spokeswoman.
The interstate will be reduced to one lane in either or both directions between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. weekdays at various locations in the project area for pavement milling and resurfacing.
The work is part of a $6.9 million project to resurface I-680 from Steel Street to Route 224. Some repairs on overpass bridges at Ridge, Glenwood and Mahoning avenues and lighting replacements have already been done.
The project is scheduled to be complete by mid-September.
Steve Ambrosio, chief of transportation for Youngstown City Schools, doesn’t expect the work to be a problem for bus drivers.
“I don’t expect it to be much of an encumbrance on us,” he said.
Because of the locations of most schools, the majority of bus routes that use I-680 leave the interstate north of where the work is planned. The only one that doesn’t is Paul C. Bunn Elementary School on Windsor Road, Ambrosio said.
There’s only a couple of weeks of classes left for the city schools, he noted.
Jimmy Paxos, owner of Mocha House’s Boardman location, travels I-680 from his Warren home to the Tiffany Boulevard business each day.
“Some days, when I come in at 6-6:30 [a.m.], it’s no big deal,” Paxos said, referring to the light traffic volume.
Traffic is heaviest around 8 a.m.
“I’ll probably just see what happens,” Paxos said. “On days when I go in later, I’ll probably just have to leave a little bit earlier.”
Greg Parisi of Parisi Excavating, Boardman, said his company travels the road frequently but he isn’t making plans for alternate routes yet.
“I guess it all depends on how bad it is,” he said.
Parisi sees the work as a minor inconvenience that will improve the roadway when it’s done.
The project has “been on the books for a long time,” Putnam said of the project.
The heavily traveled roadway takes a lot of beating, requiring pothole repair and other maintenance through the years.
Resurfacing projects, like other road work, come to ODOT’s attention through the work of its maintenance and repair crews who meet weekly with district officials, apprising them of potential problems, the spokeswoman said.
“When we have the money, we schedule them as soon as we can,” Putnam said.
Next year, the section of I-680 between state Route 11 in Austintown and Steel Street, Youngstown, will be resurfaced. The contract for that $7.6 million project is expected to be awarded in October with the work completed in August 2010.
denise_dick@vindy.com