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Himrod Ave. Expressway to close today to Sunday
City street department, ODOT plan cleanup; detours will be posted
YOUNGSTOWN
City officials say the closing of a section of the Himrod Avenue Expressway from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. today to Sunday is needed to remove brush and blight from the location.
The city street department and the Ohio Department of Transportation is doing the cleanup of the expressway between South Avenue and Albert Street. Detours will be posted.
“The brush on the side of that road, particularly on the hillside, is terrible,” said Kevin Flinn, the city’s buildings and grounds commissioner. “We’ll be clearing it. When brush falls into the road, it creates hazards. We need to clean it up.”
Mayor Jamael Tito Brown said this is “another important part of cleaning up the city’s corridors. This is a key location. We have debris that comes down onto the road. We need to remove the brush and blight from that part” of the expressway.
Closing the expressway is “a little bit of an inconvenience for an overall improvement,” Flinn said.
Brown said, “It would take a lot longer to clean it if the road wasn’t closed. It’s also better for safety if we close it down for portions of a few days rather than keep it open while trying to clean it.”
“We’ll be cutting down the vegetation and brush,” Flinn said. “It creates a lot of flying objects. We don’t want that hitting a moving car.”
The project will “make a big difference” along the expressway and make it safer for motorists, Brown said.
In addition to that section of the expressway closed between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. today to Sunday, the on and off ramps from the Madison Avenue Expressway will have partial lane closures during that time.