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Wick Avenue finally opens today
YOUNGSTOWN
It’s been a long time coming, but the reopening of Wick Avenue is today – finally.
“It’s a project that has demanded the patience of the stakeholders along Wick Avenue, the [Youngstown State University] community and folks who drive on Wick Avenue,” said Mayor John A. McNally. “I’m very excited the project will be open and completed. It’s a great look for the Wick corridor.”
The project closed Wick Avenue from Wood Street to McGuffey Road since late September 2016.
It was supposed to take 12 months to complete, but “a lot of unforeseen circumstances,” particularly underground utility wires and pipes, caused a delay of a month, said Charles Shasho, the city’s deputy director of public works.
“Most of the issues were lines that nobody knew were there,” he said. “It’s pretty common downtown because the underground lines are so old and the maps the utility companies gave us weren’t that accurate. That was the big part of the delay.”
But Shasho said, “The short-term pains will be well worth the long-term gains on this work. The long-term gains are having a complete street project and creating a more pedestrian-friendly concept for those in and around YSU. With the students walking in and around campus, it’s more pedestrian-heavy than most of our streets. We added crosswalks and changed the vehicular lane configuration to make it more safe.”
The project included paving, burying utility wires, widening sidewalks, installing new crosswalks, installing new lighting, replacing a sewer line, replacing two waterlines with one, reducing the four-lane road to one in each direction with a middle turning lane, and installing new signs.
The old street had 10-feet-wide lanes while the new street has 14-feet-wide lanes, Shasho said. The new wider lanes will be able to provide enough space for those riding bicycles to better use Wick Avenue, he said.
“In the end, we’ve got a great-looking project,” Shasho said. “We have beautiful streetlights and a nice, solid infrastructure under the pavement.”
The work, so far, has cost about $4.5 million, but with changes to the project it could add up to $200,000 more to the price, Shasho said.
YSU gave $800,000 to cover the light poles and the landscaping, he said, with the rest of the cost coming from the city’s water and wastewater funds.
“This project has transformed Wick Avenue, and set a new standard for infrastructure and aesthetic upgrades to our downtown,” said Sharon Letson, executive director of Youngstown CityScape, which was involved with the project.
The Wick Avenue project will serve as a model when the city does an improvement project on Fifth Avenue between West Federal Street and the Westbound Service Road – and possibly farther north, Shasho said.
The Fifth Avenue work would start in 2020, he said.