Construction Projects
Dayton-Springfield Road — $5.7 million
Upper Valley Pike (Cottonwood to Ross Lane) — $1.7 million
Upper Valley Pike/County Line Road intersection — $1.4 million
Spangler Road Bridge rehabilitation — $500,000
Bridge Replacements — $1.7 million total
North Hampton Road Bridge
Leffel Lane Bridge
Folk Ream Road Bridge
Buena Visa Road Bridge
Hustead Road Bridge
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The Springfield News-Sun digs into important public safety issues such as traffic and road projects. Recent stories have included coverage of the Clark County Engineer’s Office and the Clark-Springfield Transportation Coordinating Committee and the Ohio Department of Transportation.
Clark County drivers will see more than $10 million in safety upgrades and improvements to area roads and bridges this year.
Dayton-Springfield Road will be the largest of the road and bridge projects the Clark County Engineer’s Office will undertake.
Crews are expected to make $5.7 million in upgrades to a section of the road between the Greene County Line and the Enon West Corporation Line. The project, which will begin in May, will be paid for with 80 percent from federal dollars and 20 percent from the Ohio Public Works Commission.
“This had high enough traffic counts and there were enough accidents to warrant coming in and doing these improvements,” Clark County Engineer Johnathan Burr said.
Dayton-Springfield Road is a two-lane roadway that connects Interstate 675 and I-70. It is the main thoroughfare through Enon. More than 13,000 vehicles travel along the road daily, Burr said.
Along a 3.3-mile stretch of the road, 78 crashes occurred and most – 59 percent — were rear-end crashes, according to a safety study conducted between 2004 and 2006.
Right angle or T-bone crashes accounted for 21 percent of them, according to the study.
Clark County-Springfield Transportation Coordinating Committee Director Scott Schmid said the addition of a left center turning lane should reduce congestion and rear-end crashes.
“We want to get the turning cars out of the travel lane,” Schmid said.
Crews are expected to resurface more than three miles of pavement on Dayton-Springfield Road and widen about 1.5 miles.
Other changes include raising pavement markers, adding or upgrading traffic signals, installing signs that flash car speeds and adding or widening turn lanes along the road, including at intersections such as Haddix and Stine roads.
“Dayton-Road is the largest project for us considering our annual budget is $7 million,” Burr said.
John Welch, who works at an auto shop along Dayton-Springfield Road, said the improvements are much needed due to the heavy traffic and the number of crashes along the road.
The auto shop where he works has been hit, Welch said, and he’s seen several accidents in front of the shop.
“I definitely watch and pay attention because this road, it’s just a small road with a lot of traffic … My own mother got hit a few years ago pulling into the shop,” Welch said.
In July, county commissioners approved $1.7 million in road improvements for Upper Valley Pike to improve safety from U.S. 40 to the Upper Valley Mall.
Construction on the project from Cottonwood Drive to Ross Lane began in February and is expected to wrap up in June. Crews will widen and resurface the Upper Valley Pike corridor, Burr said, and upgrade signals and drainage in the area.
The first phase of the project was completed in 2012.
The $2.5 million project involved widening and restructuring more than a half-mile of Upper Valley between U.S. 40 and Cottonwood Drive and more than three quarter of a mile of Shrine Road from Upper Valley Pike to Locust Drive.
Other construction road projects on tap include $1.4 million upgrades to Upper Valley Pike and the County Line Road intersection and $500,000 of rehabilitation of the Spangler Road bridge.
The intersection of Upper Valley Pike and County Line Road has been the scene of multiple accidents since 2006 as a result of an incline and guard rail there that makes it difficult for motorists along County Line and Storms Creeks roads to see oncoming traffic.
Construction on the Spangler Road bridge, which is a connection for Interstate 675 and Ohio 571, is expected to begin in July or August. That project, funded by state and federal money, will be completed in October or November.
The county will try to maintain one lane of traffic there through most of the construction, which has 9,700 motorists who drive it daily.
The bridge replacement projects total $1.7 million. Those projects include North Hampton Road, Leffel Lane, Folk Ream Road, Buena Vista Road and Hustead Road bridges, Burr said.
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