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Timber Run Drive extension now open after Gibson Road closes
By ROBERT CONNELLY
CANFIELD
Gibson Road closed Thursday for a few months while the bridge over the Ohio Turnpike is rebuilt.
That means the Timber Run Drive extension, connecting the Stonebridge development in the city to the Westbury development in the township, is now open. It had been a 150-foot emergency access road and is now a two-lane road with a sidewalk.
Westbury is a development off of Gibson Road, north of the state Route 46 and Herbert Road intersection, while Stonebridge comes off of Herbert Road, with two entrances to the subdivision, west of Herbert and Route 46.
A Canfield Police Department speed trailer has been set up on Timber Run Drive, facing traffic coming from the now-open road between Alabaster Avenue and Sandstone Lane.
“If people actually drove 25 mph, it wouldn’t be a big deal,” said David Padgett, a Stonebridge resident. Padgett was one of about seven residents who have spoken at city council meetings since the announcement of the access road being turned into a two-lane road was made.
The Ohio Turnpike Commission, with assistance from the Stonebridge Land Corp. in the city, paid $55,000 to make the road as a detour for the Gibson Road project.
The reconstruction of that bridge is expected to be finished in October.
Residents in both developments have raised concern with the opening of the road, especially parents with children. City Councilman John Morvay has been firm on his stance that the road should stay open. Morvay is the city council representative on the Cardinal Joint Fire District Board.
“Now that we had this opportunity to have this road completed by the state, the turnpike, we took advantage of it,” Morvay said at Wednesday’s city council meeting. “That road’s open. I have no plans of closing it.”
An engineering study is being done, using traffic counts from before Gibson Road closed, now while Gibson is closed and then a third when it is reopened.
“I don’t feel like I’ve seen that much traffic but I know there will be” traffic, said Kristina Tokash.
Tokash, 35, and her husband live at the corner of Timber Run and Grayson drives and have lived there for a year and a half. When their house was built, Tokash said the developer told them there was a “good chance” the emergency access road would be turned into a road.
“I would prefer it to be closed,” she said.
Tokash and her husband have two children, both under the age of 7. “It doesn’t bother me except for high traffic times,” she said.
A sign was on state Route 46 Thursday alerting drivers that the bridge was closed beginning Thursday, and crews could be seen working on the bridge.