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Advice to detouring motorists: Don't speed
CANFIELD
City leaders want motorists detouring through a residential neighborhood after a major bridge closing here to be cautious and to observe the posted speed limit.
As soon as the barricades were erected late Monday at the bridge carrying state Route 46 and U.S. Route 62 over the Ohio Turnpike, northbound motorists began detouring west through the residential neighborhood via Sawmill Run Drive to Herbert Road.
Sawmill, which has an elbow curve, has 25 mph speed limit signs, a portable electronic monitor showing motorists their speed, and signs barring trucks and saying: “Caution: Children at Play.”
The entire neighborhood, as well as the city’s portion of Herbert Road, has a posted 25 mph speed limit, said Anthony Nacarato, who resides on Willow Way in the neighborhood, where many motorists are detouring.
“It’s concerning because it is going to increase the traffic in our area,” Nacarato, a member of the city’s design review commission, said of the closing of the bridge, which normally carries about 9,800 vehicles a day.
“A higher police presence to watch the speeders and watch the traffic flow would be essential to keeping our children safe,” he added.
“Follow our speed limits,” city Councilman Joe LoCicero advised detouring motorists.
He noted that the neighborhood has sloping streets, where motorists will have to make an extra effort to maintain the proper speed going downhill.
“We have definitely increased our patrol on those roadways people use as a shortcut,” such as Sawmill Run Drive and the combination of Sleepy Hollow and Blueberry Hill drives, where the speed limit is also 25 mph and trucks also are banned, city Police Chief Chuck Colucci said.
“Without exception, we’ll enforce the commercial vehicle ban on the side streets,” Colucci said.
Canfield businesses have assured city officials they won’t send trucks over the side streets, he added.
To avoid the residential neighborhood as much as possible, the preferred route for commercial traffic serving Star Extruded Shapes Inc., an aluminum extrusion company on Herbert Road, would be to use Herbert, Turner and Palmyra roads to access U.S. Route 224, LoCicero said.
Noncommercial motorists should preferably detour from U.S. Route 224 via Raccoon Road to Shields Road or from 224 to Palmyra and Turner roads to Herbert Road, Colucci recommended.
However, if noncommercial drivers choose to use residential side streets, they must obey the 25 mph speed limit, he said.
Two restaurants just north of the bridge, the Phoenix Fire Grill and Bar and the newly opened Village Pump, were busy just after the bridge was barricaded.
“Of course, it’s going to impact our business,” said Terry Kaleel, co-owner of the Phoenix.
“The bulk of Canfield is on the south end of this bridge,” he noted.
However, he added: “We’re still open the same amount of hours” on a seven-day-a-week schedule.
“I just hope they’re done in 21 days like they said,” he added.
Nacarato said he was glad that the Raccoon Road bridge over the turnpike reopened Friday before the Route 46 and 62 bridge closed Monday, so both bridges wouldn’t be closed simultaneously.
Nacarato, LoCicero and Kaleel said it would have been preferable to close half of the 46 and 62 bridge at a time to perform the repairs, maintaining one lane of traffic in each direction throughout the work, rather than closing the entire bridge at once.
However, Newbacher said doing that would have prolonged the disruption and might have increased the cost of the work.
Colucci said the turnpike will close the Herbert Road bridge over the turnpike for 21 days for repairs as soon as the 46/62 bridge reopens.