SHELBY, Ohio – Starting this summer, the city of Shelby is on its way to safer travels. Two paving projects totaling $4.4 million will begin and will rehabilitate two state routes through the city.
By taking advantage of the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) Urban Paving Program, the city of Shelby will be able to pave Gamble and Main Street as well as Mansfield Avenue over the next year. However, participation in the Urban Paving Program would not have been possible without Shelby citizens passing a five-year, 0.2 percent income tax levy in 2013.
“We have been on ODOT’s list to have this done for two to three years now, but we didn’t have the money,” explained Shelby’s Project Coordinator Joe Gies. “Shelby citizens voted for the income tax levy and we were finally able to have the money to pay for our portion of the project.”
According to state law, cities are required to pave the U.S. and state routes within their boundaries, however this is an expense most cities find difficult to fund. In response to this issue, the ODOT Urban Paving Program outlined an 80/20 fund allocation for each municipality. ODOT provides 80 percent of the paving funds, while the municipalities must provide a 20 percent match.
Gies also noted the roads could not have been paved sooner using other funds because only funds allocated to paving roads and streets can be used to do so, and sufficient paving funds required Shelby citizens to pass the income tax levy for roads and sidewalks. For example, funds designated to build a park cannot legally be used to pave a road.
“There are different pots of money and you can only spend them on certain things,” said Gies. “There are rules and auditors that come in and let us know if we don’t follow them correctly.”
The first paving project scheduled to start on August 1 is Gamble and Main Streets; Main Street is state Route 96 from Broadway east then state Route 39, and Gamble is state Route 61. It’s a $1.7 million undertaking, but with the Urban Paving Program the city of Shelby’s portion of the project is $495,618. Gies said the Gamble and Main Street project is expected to finish by the end of October.
“Gamble and Main Street will get what they call ‘mill and fill’ – they will mill the existing surface off and put new surface on,” explained Gies. “They mill the surface off, then they bring brushes in to clean it off then make sure everything is good to go before putting the asphalt surface down, then come back and stripe it all and adjust any manholes, water valves and everything after that.”
Though parking may be prohibited during the paving phase of the project, flaggers will keep traffic moving along Gamble and Main Street and around the milling and paving machines.
The second paving project is the rehabilitation of Mansfield Avenue, or state Route 39, a project that will not start until the spring of 2016 and end in the fall of 2016. The $2.7 million project will consist of replacing curbs, sidewalks and driveway aprons on Mansfield Avenue from Seneca Drive to Main Street; the existing asphalt will be planed off and replaced with three inches of new asphalt.
“Right now the plans are also to have new traffic signals at Franklin Avenue, Morningside Drive and Mickey Road, and they’ll be interconnected with Main Street and will make for better traffic flow,” said Gies, the result of an intensive traffic study. “The safety study also included a crosswalk in front of Cornell’s IGA that provides pedestrians a protected location to cross Mansfield Avenue. We’re pretty excited about it.”
Two-way traffic and business access will be maintained throughout the duration of the Mansfield Avenue project, and the project will be constructed at no cost to property owners within the project.
Of the $4.4 million total for both projects, the city of Shelby will only owe $995,618 – roughly 23 percent of the total cost. Gies explained this advantage is largely because the passing of the income tax levy allowed the city to leverage for much more money through grants and federal dollars.
“When you have another agency willing to pay for 80 percent of the project you have to jump on it,” said Gies. “I known there’s been some frustration of side streets not getting paved. The state routes are going to come first but then we’ll have three years left on the levy to really hammer the side streets and get caught back up.”
The last time Shelby’s roads were repaved was in 2000. Gies said the construction from now until the fall of 2016 will be well worth it in the end.
“For one aesthetically, and two it’ll be a nice surface to drive on, nicer for parking and for businesses to have a nice clean surface with new striping,” he said. “It’ll be much nicer all the way around.”
“Shelby citizens voted for the income tax levy and we were finally able to have the money to pay for our portion of the project,” said Shelby Project Coordinator Joe Gies.
