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Raccoon Road to reopen at U.S. 224 Monday as scheduled
By ROBERT CONNELLY
CANFIELD
Raccoon Road at U.S. Route 224 will reopen Monday afternoon as scheduled.
Ohio Department of Transportation spokesman Justin Chesnic said the closing was to finish the widening of Raccoon; the other side of the road was widened earlier this summer.
Crews will put down a base pavement and an intermediate pavement and then stripe Route 224 before focusing on bridge work on 224 over state Route 11, the last aspect of the project, Chesnic said.
“We’re in early August and we’ve got quite a bit of work to do,” Chesnic said. “We should be in pretty good shape for October,” the expected completion of the project.
Raccoon Road is going to be a detour for Valley residents heading to the Canfield Fair less than a month away.
Craig Myers, Canfield Fair Board president, said he has not received feedback on travel concerns from fair patrons or vendors. He cautioned that “a lot of people from outside the area don’t know it’s [the 224 bridge] under construction, and the people from the area have already become accustomed to selecting alternate routes.”
Myers also said Mahoning County Engineer Patrick T. Ginnetti, ODOT officials and Lt. Nakia Hendrix, commander of the Canfield Post of the Ohio State Highway Patrol, are prepared for handling traffic.
“We’re going to make sure we have plenty of signage on alternate routes and what a fairgoer needs to know about the delay,” he said. “They’ve done an excellent job of staying on schedule and ... it is a welcome relief over there with as close as they are to being on track.”
Chesnic said crews will not be setting up more traffic zones during the Canfield Fair other than the bridge work. “Things are in pretty good shape,” he said.
ODOT began replacement and widening of the U.S. 224 bridge over Route 11 in March. Since then, crews have widened both sides of Raccoon Road where it intersects with Route 224 and also will widen the Route 11 southbound exit onto 224 with an additional lane.
A.P. O’Horo Co. of Youngstown is the contractor on the $6.5 million project.
Elsewhere in the Valley, ODOT announced Friday two projects in Youngstown:
A $1 million project to replace signals along South Avenue and Midlothian Boulevard will have various daily lane restrictions until further notice. Those sections are on South Avenue between Midlothian and just south of Interstate 680, and on Midlothian between South and Southern Boulevard.
Work on Interstate 680 will end at 7 a.m. today after pavement repairs on the highway were done between South Avenue and Midlothian Boulevard overnight Friday.
The U.S. Route 62 bridge over Meander Creek in Green Township between Knauf Road and Calla Road is now open.