Summer road improvement plans unveiled

by Dan Holland

April 11 Service and Safety Committee meeting

Broadview Heights City Engineer Gary Yelenosky presented details of the city’s 2022 Road Program, along with a color-coded roadway condition map noting the condition of all city streets. Also presented was a second map listing streets designated for repairs and a new top coat, with others scheduled for joint repair and some to be done on a contingency basis.

Yelenosky said the following streets are designated for repair/overlay work in 2022: Avery Road (south), Craig Lane, East Edgerton Road (east), Fireside Trail, Harris Road (east), Joyce Road, Lenwood Drive, Longview Road, Louis Road, Marianna Boulevard, Newton Pass and Wright Road (south).

Scheduled for joint repair are: Countryside Road, Ledgemont Road, Market Place, Melrose Lane, Prestwick Drive, Regent Court, Scenicview Drive, Silverbrook Court, Somerset Drive, Stonehaven Court, Sunview Drive and Turnberry Crossing.

Streets listed on contingency status – on which work will be performed if funding allows – include Boulder Wood Drive, Loripat Drive, Lydia Drive and Majestic Oaks Trail.

Yelenosky said he and Service Director David Schroedel drove all the city streets in March and performed an evaluation, issuing a roadway condition grade for each from A to D minus.

Major work on the designated streets will be performed by Specialized Construction, Inc., while service department workers will perform concrete and asphalt repair work on a number of streets not included on the designated list. The service department includes a crew that concentrates solely on catch basin repairs, said Schroedel.

Different repair and repaving methods are used based on the road type and need, Schroedel explained.

“Chip seal works very well on roads without curbs and catch basins,” he explained. “With some roads, we can mill it off and [pour new] asphalt. A lot of times when we do that, we have to do some base repairs in certain sections if the base is cracked up. For roads with curbs and catch basins, we usually do repair work.”

Yelenosky said Harris Road, east of I-77, is an existing overlay asphalt road on top of concrete.

“There is quite a bit of concrete repairs we need to make, so we will mill the road, identify those concrete repairs, make those repairs and then do an overlay,” he said. “There is also some catch basin and curb work that our service department is going to handle as part of that process.”

The budget for the 2022 Road Program is $1 million, with approximately $350,000 coming from Cuyahoga County in the form of a 50/50 funding grant and preventative maintenance grants, according to Yelenosky. County funding will be applied to resurfacing work on East Edgerton and Avery roads.

“On East Edgerton, we’re using a process called cold-in-place recycling, which we did on Avery and also on Sprague Road and Harris Road – It works very well,” said Schroedel. “With cold in-place recycling, they grind it up and add stone and a polymer agent, which creates a very good stable base to lay asphalt on top of.”

Yelenosky added that motorists can expect a detour this summer on East Edgerton Road, as the Ohio Turnpike and Infrastructure Commission plans to replace the bridge and bridge deck over the Ohio Turnpike, a project that is expected to last from early June until late September.

As with any road project season, there are always a number unknown variables involved, said Schroedel.

“A lot of times, when we mill the street off, it requires more base repairs than we may have estimated, which is a challenge financially,” he explained. “The challenge is always that we have more to do than we have funds to pay for.”

Service Department crews plan to begin repair work as soon as the weather allows, while other processes such as chip sealing need to be done during the warm summer months, Schroedel added. ∞