Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Lowellville sidewalk project nears completion
By EMMALEE C. TORISK
LOWELLVILLE
Village officials estimate that a $400,000 project designed to improve walking-and biking safety and access to the school complex is about two-thirds finished — and remain hopeful it will be done by the school year’s start in late August.
“It speaks for itself,” said Lowellville Mayor James Iudiciani Sr., referring to the project. “It will be much safer ... and the aesthetics are much nicer.”
This construction of new sidewalks and curbs in the village — an effort that concentrates on “the main arteries down to the school” at 52 Rocket Place, Iudiciani said — is funded through the Ohio Department of Transportation’s Safe Routes to School program. Obtaining the funding was a years-long process, he added.
One of the first steps toward reaching that goal was the village’s creating a travel plan, which it submitted in August 2010. The travel plan, which is available on ODOT’s website, includes the results of an in-school tally survey and a take-home parental survey. Both show that the vast majority of children arrived at and left school by school bus or family vehicle.
Only a very small percentage of students walked or bicycled to and from school. Of those students, most traveled less than a quarter-mile. Students who lived more than a mile away virtually never walked or biked.
The travel plan also outlined parents’ concerns with students either walking or biking, including distance, speed of traffic and amount of traffic along the route, weather, lack of sidewalks, and crossing safety.
Jim Alfano, president of the Lowellville Board of Education, said the district used to have more students walking to and from school than it now does, but said the completed Safe Routes to School project will greatly benefit those who do. It might even encourage others to follow their lead.
Also thinking along those lines is Capt. Stacy Karis, school-resource officer, who said she’s hoping the project will increase the number of students bicycling to and from school, as well. After all, those students are now safer. The village recently distributed new bicycle helmets to all children who wanted them, thanks to a grant from the Ohio chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics and a monetary donation from the Lowellville Village Council.
“We’re doing the most that we can and the best that we can to get them to school safely,” Karis said.
The new sidewalks will benefit residents in other ways, too, she added. Previously, the village didn’t have sidewalks by the baseball fields, so children walking to baseball practice were forced to walk in the grass or on the street. Even in the areas where there were sidewalks, some were deteriorating — another hazard.
Construction on the Safe Routes project began earlier this month. The original grant amount was $442,000, but the actual bid for the work ended up coming in at about $339,000, Iudiciani said, adding that engineering costs constituted the remaining amount. Parella-Pannunzio Inc. of Youngstown is handling the project.
Iudiciani noted that the portion of the project involving replacement of sidewalks on the north and south sides of Wood Street is almost finished, and that crews next will install a sidewalk on Ralph Conti Drive between the baseball fields and the roadway. Finally, a new sidewalk will be constructed on the north side of Walnut Street, from Youngstown-Lowellville Road to the sidewalk on the bridge over Pine Hollow Creek.
The latter endeavor required the village’s acquisition of temporary right-of-way from several homeowners.
Bill Meehan, village administrator, called the Safe Routes project one that “helps everybody,” including parents and property owners. “It makes the village have good curb appeal,” he said.