MANSFIELD — Richland County commissioners on Thursday approved $3.1 million in future bridge replacement and road improvement projects — with most of the funds coming from federal and state grants.
The unanimous votes came during a meeting with county Engineer Adam Gove, who outlined them as follows:
Gove said the county has received $1.35 million in federal money through the Ohio Dept. of Transportation for the project, which will likely be done in 2025, from Home Road to Marion Avenue Road.
He said the county will need to pay about $250,000, which will include a 10 percent matching cost for the grant and other construction efforts.
“It’s a big project,” Gove said.
In May, Gove told commissioners the need was identified during a study of the heavily traveled, 55-mile-per-hour corridor done in 2020-2021. The engineer said his department applied for the grant near the end of 2021.
“This is an area that doesn’t have much shoulder and also doesn’t have much berm,” the engineer said when the grant was announced in May. “There are ditches, brush and trees along the roadway, also.”
He said each side of the road will get an additional six feet of paved berm and another two feet of shoulder, a total of about eight feet on each side of the two-lane road.
In addition to helping motorists stay on the road, the improvement should also reduce animal accidents in the area, including deer-vehicle crashes.
“It will help open things up so people can more easily see what’s along the edge of the road,” Gove said.
— $660,000 to replace a bridge on Champion Road, just north of London West Road in Plymouth Township. Gove said $600,000 for the project will come from grant funds through the state’s County Engineer Association, along with the Ohio Dept. of Transportation.
Those funds cover 100 percent of the design and construction of the bridge, according to Gove, who said $60,000 in local funds will be needed for inspection work.
Gove said the project will be bid as a design/build project with the work likely being done in late 2023 or early 2024.
— $870,000 to replace a bridge on Coursen Road in Perry Township. He said ODOT will pay 100 percent of the construction costs and that $155,000 in local funds will be needed to cover the design and plans development.
Gove said the replacement will likely be done in the second half of 2024 or early 2025.
