Road Construction

We all know the old joke about Ohio’s four seasons: Almost winter, winter, still winter, and road construction. Yes, it’s a groaner. But for the most part, it’s true; especially the construction part. For the past years, the construction season has been particularly aggravating, and it is getting worse. For the last five years, there hasn’t been a summer when I have had to dodge major construction projects getting from my house to work. I have reached the limit.

The root of the problem is in the bridge improvement projects that seem to be multiplying like rabbits. For awhile, the bridges were collapsing around us. Now, they are in a continual state of repair. Not that that is a bad thing. After all, who wants to go wahoo off a bridge if it collapses? But can’t they get some sort of a plan where they don’t detour you from one bridge repair to another bridge repair to an intersection widening to a sewer project? Last summer in particular, you just couldn’t get anywhere from here…or there.

Last year, the major project was widening the intersection at Route 224 and Tippecanoe Road. That involved adding additional lanes and major traffic light revisions, not to mention all of the new telephone poles that had to go up. In all fairness, they kept that traffic moving fairly well in what was a huge a project..but it was still a mess.

This year, just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, ½ mile down Route 224 they are replacing the bridge over Mill Creek. Why? Right now there is only ½ a bridge with traffic down to one way each way. To make matters worse, go east on Route 224 another few miles past the mall, and the radio dude announced last week that traffic will be reduced to one way each way from Southern Boulevard to South Avenue as they do a major sewer replacement. Maybe that will get rid of the five feet of water that accumulates at South Avenue and Route 224 every time it rains.

Of course, I could go the long way and take the freeway around, but I would have to go through the Mahoning Avenue bridge repair over Route 11, and face the major paving job on I-680 going through Youngstown, a real treat. Not that it will make any difference as next year they begin work on modifying the off ramp traffic patterns from I 680S onto Route 224 by adding a T intersection instead of a merge intersection… which will back the traffic up down I-680 only about 5 miles or more… and that will be after the work is completed!!

My wife gets it going the opposite direction with the Mahoning Avenue bridge repair which she has to cross when she exits Route 11. Last year the county paved Mahoning Avenue which was seriously impassable, and it did such a bang up job after tying traffic up for months…it is still impassable. That’s not even funny. What the hell did they do out there?

My favorite stretch of road is I-80 from Lake Milton to the Sharon exit in Pa. That stretch of the interstate has been under construction for the last 20 years with no end in sight. The stretch of road through Girard is a joke. It must fund the pension plan for the mob paving business. It is a continual mess despite repaving which seems to occur annually.

Then there is the bridge over Meander Reservoir. First they had to fix the bridge. It was a mess in every sense of the word. Then they had to fix the intersections from Rt.11 onto I-80. Then after fixing the bridge, which was an extremely lengthy and messy proposition, they decided to widen I-80 and completely replace the bridge that they had just fixed to match the bridge that goes over Lake Milton and flow into the newly added third lane in either direction. This was after they changed the intersection from I-80 onto Route 46, and re-opened the previously closed Turnpike exit onto Mahoning Avenue by merging it with the I-80/I-76 exit.

While all of this is going on, Raccoon Road from Route 224 to Western Reserve should be closed as it is impassable, no joke, because all of the pot holes.

I understand that they don’t have these problems in Europe. I find that hard to believe. On the other hand, it is my understanding that they build their roads to last 20 years as opposed to 2. Maybe that is the case or maybe not…but wouldn’t that be a good idea? In the meantime, does anyone know where I can get one of those rocket packs?