Expect a smoother ride through Austintown later this year, engineer says

AUSTINTOWN — An up to $5 million repaving project is expected to rejuvenate the township's main thoroughfare.

The Mahoning County Engineer's office has begun seeking bids to repave 5 miles of Mahoning Avenue, from Meridian Road to Meander Creek Reservoir, later this year.

It's been at least 10 years since the road saw any major construction, said Engineer Pat Ginnetti. The pavement has become heavily worn, and cracks between lanes have begun widening — most evidently near the state Route 11 intersection, where as many as 40,000 cars pass each day, he said.

Mahoning County for several years has been waiting its turn for a $5 million federal highway grant, now in-hand, Ginnetti said. A 20-percent local match will come from the engineer's budget.

Work is slated to begin in late spring or early summer and finish by the end of the year, but the work schedule will largely be weather-dependent, he said.

Traffic may be reduced to one lane each way, though traffic control will be left up to the contractor, Ginnetti said. Regardless, "it's gonna be a major inconvenience. A road of that size and this big — it's gonna cause delays and slow people down. But it's temporary."

The engineer's office also has received federal funding for two phases of repaving along South Avenue in Boardman: from Matthews Road to Presidential Drive; then further south to Western Reserve Road — both of which are $5 million projects, Ginnetti said.

Ginnetti said his office has prioritized work on major corridors.

"We have to try to get roads like that done because you have so much volume and so many buses on those roads," he said. "Big jobs like that, we obviously couldn't absorb that in our budget. That would consume us."

Austintown Township Trustee Jim Davis said residents have been requesting fixes to Mahoning Avenue "for quite some time."

"The widening of [state Route 46] has greatly helped with traffic flow, and now the paving of Mahoning Avenue will make travel through Austintown nice and smooth sailing," he said.

This story was originally published January 2, 2021 at 5:55 AM with the headline "Expect a smoother ride through Austintown later this year, engineer says."