Part of North Lima Road to close today


By Jordyn Grzelewski

jgrzelewski@vindy.com

POLAND

North Lima Road from Spitler to Western Reserve roads will close for 18 days beginning today for a culvert-replacement project.

Though the closure overlaps with the start of the school year – Poland students go back to school next Monday – school district officials do not believe it will cause a major disruption.

“On a temporary basis, we might just have to take a different travel path around there. Fortunately, our drivers are pretty experienced,” said district transportation director Bill Amero.

The school district recently handed out this year’s routes to drivers, and drivers were informed of the North Lima closure, Amero said. Though the district will provide suggested alternate routes, he believes drivers are adept enough at their job to handle the change.

“The drivers are the ones that are out there every day – they know the area,” he said. “When we have small detours, we kind of empower them to make slight deviations.”

“We’ll just adapt and overcome,” he added.

Motorists can take Walker Mill Road to South Avenue, or use state Route 170 as detours to avoid the affected stretch of North Lima, Mahoning County Engineer Patrick Ginnetti said.

The culvert project, which is to replace a concrete-box culvert that carries a tributary of Yellow Creek, costs $47,000.

After the road reopens, North Lima from Walker Mill to Western Reserve will be resurfaced.

The repaving work is part of the county’s annual road-repaving program. Mahoning County commissioners earlier this month approved a $1.8 million contract with Stateline Paving LLC of North Lima to repave numerous roads across the county.

Repaving of that stretch of North Lima will not require road closures.