×

$1M traffic-signal project for Mahoning Ave. gets green light

By DAVID SKOLNICK

Staff reporter                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

YOUNGSTOWN — The city’s board of control approved a $540,000 contract for design work and engineering to replace 10 traffic lights — and possibly remove one or two — along one of the busiest roads on the West Side.

The contract Thursday with GPD Group, which has a local office in Youngstown, is for Mahoning Avenue between Meridian Road, the city’s western border with Austintown, and Oak Hill Avenue, where the street ends at the Spring Common Bridge and becomes Fifth Avenue.

The design work will begin shortly, but construction on the traffic lights won’t start until 2022, said Charles Shasho, the city’s deputy director of public works.

Construction of the lights will cost about $1 million, Shasho said.

That work will be done one intersection at a time, taking about two weeks for each — for 20 weeks’ worth of work, he said.

When the project is done, Shasho said: “There will be extended green lights. We’ll synchronize the lights like we did with the (2015) project on South Avenue. The traffic flows so much better. We want to accomplish that with Mahoning Avenue.”

While a light is installed, the existing one will remain and then be taken down when the replacement work is finished, he said.

“Signal replacement is nonevasive for traffic,” Shasho said. “There are occasional traffic tie-ups, but not much because they do one signal at a time.”

Cost of the entire project is coming from federal funding, he said.

The traffic lights are at these Mahoning Avenue intersections: Meridian Road, Dunlap Avenue, Schenley Avenue, Hazelwood Avenue, Belle Vista Avenue, Steel Street, Glenwood Avenue, Edwards Street, West Avenue and Oak Hill Avenue, Shasho said.

GPD will conduct a traffic study of the project location and determine if all 10 lights are needed. Shasho said he expects one or two of them to be eliminated — possibly on Dunlap and Hazelwood avenues.

The left signal light at the Belle Vista intersection will either be removed or reduced to busy traffic times, Shasho said.

Also, the project may consider getting rid of flashing lights at the Mahoning Avenue intersections with Bon Air and Lakeview avenues, he said.

“When traffic analysis is done, it’s rare that all of the traffic signals stay,” Shasho said.

The road will be repaved with improvements to the curbs and sidewalks after the lights are replaced, he said.

The section from Meridian Road to Belle Vista Avenue will be done in 2023 and from Belle Vista to Oak Hill avenues in 2024.

dskolnick@tribtoday.com

NEWSLETTER

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *
   

Starting at $4.85/week.

Subscribe Today