Route 11 bridge to be finished by Monday

The Western Reserve, Kirk and New road bridges were done last year and painted this year.

By DENISE DICK

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

AUSTINTOWN — Work that caused Mahoning Avenue motorists to shift lanes and wait as construction crews worked to redeck the bridge over state Route 11 is nearly done.

“The completion date is Nov. 2,” said Justin Chesnic, a spokesman for the Ohio Department of Transportation’s District 4, which includes Mahoning County.

It’s the last bridge to be completed in the $7 million project — with a $5.7 million construction price tag — to redeck and paint the bridges over Route 11 at Mahoning and Western Reserve, Kirk and New roads. Work started in spring 2008.

“We did the other three bridges last year and then painted those while we were working on Mahoning,” Chesnic said.

All that’s left this week is striping, waterline and touch-up work.

A.P. O’Horo Co. of Youngstown was the contractor. The Mahoning bridge project included adding left-turn lanes to access Route 11 north and south.

People who work at businesses along the stretch of Mahoning near the bridge are glad to see the project finished.

Customers had a difficult time getting in and out of the plaza that houses Noday’s Pizza & Deli, Ken Noday said.

“With the economy and the traffic problems, we feel like we got hit with a double whammy,” he said.

Frustration of those waiting along Mahoning caused some to block the drive from the plaza onto the road, adding to the annoyance of those waiting to get in or out of the business, Noday said.

Employees often would offer alternate routes, directing longtime customers into and out of the shop.

“A lot of our customers are older, and they don’t always know the back roads,” Noday said.

He’s happy that the work is nearly done.

So is Brian Bartlett, service manager at Aerus-Electrolux, a vacuum cleaner business in the same Mahoning Avenue plaza as Noday’s.

“They did a really nice job with the bridge,” Bartlett said. “The old bridge was kind of rickety and wasn’t very wide.”

While work was going on, traffic did get tied up in front of the business, he said, making it difficult to get in or out.

That was mainly during rush hour, Bartlett said.

denise_dick@vindy.com