MANSFIELD — Construction on the nearly $15 million Main Street Corridor Improvement project in Mansfield won’t begin until 2025.
But planning for that project — including obtaining $12.7 million in outside grant funding — began seven years ago.
That’s why city engineer Bob Bianchi obtained City Council approval Tuesday night to launch a year-long study on the Ohio 13 corridor on the city’s north side from U.S. 30 to South Airport Road.
The work would be done through a professional engineering firm, he said. The city has worked with EMH&T from Columbus as a consultant on the effort on a stretch of two-lane load that covers about 2.25 miles.
“As we’re thinking about where do we go next, we have to start now. Even though we haven’t even broken ground on the big (Main Street) project we’ve been talking about, it takes such a long time from cradle to grave,” Bianchi said.
“So here we are,” he said, directing local lawmakers to a map showing the planned location of the study and the details associated with it.
“The first step would be to study on this area. The proposed project is to improve State Route 13 from U.S. 30 all the way up to South Airport Road.
“That corridor, that very important artery to our industrial park has grown … traffic has grown … accidents have increased,” Bianchi said.
The study will cost about $329,000 and Bianchi said the Richland County Regional Planning Commission would fund about 90 percent of that. The remaining $30,000 would come from the city’s permissive sales tax funds.
“We’re going to start with a study and look at traffic data, traffic analysis, crash analysis, capacity analysis. Do we need three lanes? Do we need five lanes? Most likely only three. But we should have a turn lane,” he said.
He said the study would include a hydraulic study to look at storm water drainage, safety analysis and traffic signal analysis, especially at the Harrington Memorial Road intersection.
“There might be some signals warranted, but would it be responsible to put one in? Maybe a roundabout would be more responsible,” he said.
“What would this project cost? The study is planned to take about a year. It’s going to take a lot of time,” he said.
He said the study would deliver a planning document, not a design.
“This is the first step,” he said. “The dream would be that this corridor would (have) more of an urban feel to it. It wouldn’t be a rural road, meaning maybe there’s curb and gutter lanes with a bike lane and street trees,” the engineer said.
“But that’s kind of what we’re looking at, completely rebuilding (the road) and it’s going to be expensive. So we start here and our goal is to end up with federal money being brought to the table.
“We really think with the economic development that’s occurred (on the north side), the safety problems that we have, the capacity issue that we have (and) will continue to have, we think this project can be very competitive,” Bianchi said.
Local lawmakers were receptive to the idea of the study, led by 5th Ward Councilman Aurelio Diaz.
“I think this is exciting because this is an area that we get a lot of calls about, especially in the summertime with games happening (at Cyclops Circle), MANCI, all the other businesses within the airport area, and not to mention we have construction and other areas, which then leads all these cars onto Mulberry Street and they’re going so fast,” Diaz said.
“I think one of the biggest requests before was, ‘Can we just have a light there?’ But this I think is going to be a lot better. I think a lot of people in that area and the neighborhoods will be supportive of this,” Diaz said.
At-large Councilwoman Stephanie Zader said the study will help as the city tries to grow economically.
‘We have a lot of opportunity for (growth), especially through this corridor. There’s a lot of land through there, prime for development, but we need the infrastructure to do that. So I’m really excited to see that we’re planning ahead, thinking ahead and looking at those opportunities,” Zader said.
Fourth Ward Councilwoman Cynthia Daley asked Bianchi if the study could start further south and include the area near Centerra Co-Op that features several railroad tracks.
The engineer said that section would be a costly project all on its own.
“We are looking at a potential ‘grade separation’ of a bridge over the railroad there. That’s a pipe dream right now, but it is something that we discussed.
“That would be the overall long, long range plan if maybe money falls out of the sky dealing with grade separation, (but) you just never know. So we want at least to be prepared,” Bianchi said.
