MANSFIELD — Bob Bianchi hopes to be 3,000 feet closer to downtown Mansfield within the next couple of years.
The city of Mansfield engineer gained City Council approval on Tuesday evening to spend $175,000 for design and engineering services for a new 11-foot-wide concrete sidewalk along Trimble Road from Marion Avenue to Millsboro Road.
That design work, funded through the city’s share of the permissive sales tax, is expected to be done by May 2027.
After that, Bianchi will ask local lawmakers to approve a $1.2 million construction project for the new sidewalk, which would include a $960,000 state grant through Ohio’s Transportation Alternatives Program.
It would be the final piece in a project linking the Richland B&O Trail all the way to the Mansfield Art Center at the intersection of Marion Avenue and Millsboro Road.
From there, Bianchi’s longer-range plan is to continue the “trail” along Marion Avenue to the five-way light and then along Park Avenue into the downtown, likely ending at Mulberry or Walnut streets.
“This project is to continue the vision of extending a walking path, a separate trail from the roadway, essentially for pedestrians from the B&O Trail all the way to the downtown,” Bianchi said Tuesday.
He said the connector between the B&O Trail and Trimble Road has been constructed and the new path along Millsboro Road to Marion Avenue is also in place.
He said it’s now just a question of filling the gap.
“One of the reasons why we’ve done it this way, kind of the leapfrog, is that when we go to try to get a grant for something like this, those (state) agencies like to see things to fill the gap, rather than just to extend,” Bianchi said.
“That’s kind of our hope here is that when we go for grant money to build this, it’ll look like a very viable project. We’re just simply closing the gap on projects that the city has invested in over many years,” the engineer said.
He said the new concrete path on the east side of Trimble Road will be similar to the path between Trimble and Marion Avenue, albeit one foot wider.
“This (legislation tonight) is only for design. But I did want to include construction on the documents so that you’re prepared of what we’re looking at for a total project cost,” Bianchi said.
That $1.2 million in construction cost is also scheduled to include $120,000 in permissive sales tax and $120,000 from the city’s street fund.
3rd Ward Councilwoman Crystal Davis Weese asked for more details on the permissive sales tax, which would fund all of the engineering and design work.
“That’s the sales tax that was approved by the voters in the late 1980s. It’s a portion of Richland County sales tax that they share to municipalities, villages and townships for roads and bridges and projects like this along county highways within the city,” Bianchi said.
“Trimble Road is actually a county highway. Cook Road is a county highway. Marion Avenue (is a county highway). So these types of roadways are eligible for permissive sales tax (in such projects).
“We get about $560,000 a year in (permissive sales tax) revenue,” the engineer said.
The total project is one Bianchi first came to City Council with in 2018.
“A project starts with a vision,” Bianchi said eight years ago.
“The project is, ‘Let’s get a separate facility from the B&O Bike Trail to the downtown.’ It may take 20 years. We have got to start. We could potentially be at the (Mansfield Art Center) in six (years),” he said at the time.
