Will South South St. and Trusdell Last Another year?

These streets are coming apart as I type. If they survive the winter without multiple pot holes and loose asphalt I will be surprised.

The city has around $200,000 in dedicated funding for this coming year's street improvement projects covering less than a mile of resurfacing or maybe a couple of miles of top coating. As you drive around the city that seems like an inadequate amount to meet the near term needs. The council will have take money out of the very lean general fund to cover even a small portion of the needed maintenance and repair.

But wait, doesn’t the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) assist in maintaining streets that are also state or U.S. highways such as U.S. Rt. 68 - South St? The short answer is yes, the long answer is, only when ODOT has the funds to do so.

In the case of South St. ODOT has informed me that they will be able to assist the city repaving it in 2018. The total cost of repaving South St. from the southern corporation limit to Main St. is estimated to be $1,290,000. The city's matching portion would be between $258,000 and $645,000 depending on the scope of work to be completed. If we can't wait until 2018 where will the funds come from? Included in the 2018 project costs is the repaving of Ohio Rt.134 -Lorish/Lincoln Streets.

Ohio Rt. 730 -Trusedell St. is also in dire need of repaving and ODOT plans call for repair work on this street in 2016. Repaving from the southwestern corporation limit to S. South St. is estimated to cost $498,960 and the city's matching portion will be from $100,000 to $250,000. Where will the local money come from?

As costs accumulate, other streets are in need of repair and will have to be totally funded by we city taxpayers. As an example of the condition: When the S. South St. bridge was replaced last year by ODOT, Randolph St. was the designated detour. The state indicated that Randolph would be, at their cost, returned to the same condition it was in prior to the bridge project.

When I asked ODOT when they planed to repair Randolph I received this response.

“The plans state and show a portion of Randolph St. as the local detour. The plans also state that the Department [ODOT] will restore the local detour to existing condition prior to the project. Per ODOT personnel, the road was very rough before the project: upon completion of the project, the route was left in a similar condition to the pre – detour condition and the department did not need to provide any repair.”

It appears that we can add Randolph as another street on life support. The recently acquired Airborne Rd. is also looming as a potential million repair project. Again, where will the money come from?

Paul Hunter paulhunter45177@gmail.com