New $91.5M Meander bridges to open over I-80 next week

Photo by: Robert K. Yosay

Photo

LONG PROCESS: Ken Carano, Mahoning Valley regional director for Gov. Ted Strickland, was an Austintown trustee when talk of widening the twin Iinterstate 80 bridges over Meander Reservoir began. The project began in April 2006 and opens next week.

By Rick Rouan

AUSTINTOWN — The Interstate 80 twin bridges over Meander Reservoir are scheduled to open for traffic next week, ending more than three years of construction on the $91.5 million project.

Dignitaries from the construction crew, and state and local government cut a ribbon Wednesday to commemorate the reopening of the westbound bridge, set for Tuesday. Construction crews widened the 2,500-foot bridges from four to six lanes and installed a chemical containment system to prevent contamination of the Valley’s drinking water.

“This was probably one of the biggest projects built over water like this,” said Eric Czetli, district deputy director for the Ohio Department of Transportation District 4. District 4 includes Mahoning, Trumbull, Ashtabula, Portage, Stark and Summit counties.

The project stretches about 4.2 miles from the interchange at the Ohio Turnpike to state Route 11. Crews worked from barges to keep two lanes of traffic open along I-80, the primary corridor connecting Chicago and New York. Traffic since 2007 has crossed Meander on two lanes, each direction, of the eastbound span.

Although the bridges are scheduled to reopen for six-lane traffic next week, construction crews will be in the area doing touch-up work, such as rumble strips and striping, for another month, said Joe Alfano, project engineer.

About 55,000 vehicles, 30 percent of which are trucks, travel the bridges each day, Czetli said.

The project began in April 2006, but speakers at the ribbon cutting said they could remember discussions from the early 1990s about potential changes to the bridges.

“It was a war,” said Ken Carano, Mahoning Valley regional director for Gov. Ted Strickland. Carano was an Austintown Township trustee when talk of widening began.

Great Lakes Construction of Hinckley, and Anthony Allega of Valley View, won $86 million in contracts to widen the bridges and install the contaminant containment system in February 2006.

But the final cost of the project was $91.5 million, about $5 million over the budgeted amount, because supports were drilled farther down and crews needed more materials than anticipated, Alfano said.

The bridges are constructed so that in the event of a chemical spill, contaminants would drain into ditches and flow through pipes to two basins. The chemicals will hold there for 30 minutes so emergency responders can shut off a valve to keep chemicals from entering the water supply. About 220,000 people receive water from Meander Reservoir.

“It’s the first one that I’m aware of in the state of Ohio,” Czetli said.

Carano said he toured the site throughout construction and that the construction crews working from barges was unique.

“It was like a living modern marvel,” he said.

Reducing the bridge to two lanes for nearly three and a half years slowed traffic, and Carano said he frequently received calls asking when it would be complete.

“The problem is people have perceptions, not realities,” he said.

“The average person does not understand the day-to-day intricacies of what goes on here.”

rrouan@vindy.com