Staff photo / Greg Macafee.... Traffic flows on U.S. Route 224 in Boardman on Sunday. About 30,000 vehicles use the road daily, state transportation officials said.

Click HERE for more from the Ohio Department of Transportation explaining in detail the $20 million Route 224 improvement project in Boardman.

BOARDMAN — The Ohio Department of Transportation recently announced its proposal for a major overhaul to a section of U.S. Route 224 in Boardman.

“It is a very heavily trafficked area. Over 30,000 vehicles use this stretch of 224 every single day,” ODOT District 4 Spokesman Ray Marsch said.

“This project is set to improve safety by reducing congestion in this corridor. By widening the road and adding an additional travel lane in each direction, it truly allows 224 to flow more efficiently. This will accommodate traffic for many years.”

The $20.3 million project would add an eastbound and westbound lane, remove some red lights, add a central median strip along with turning lanes and U-turns, and implement right-in, right-out only turns along the entire stretch from Market Street to Tiffany Boulevard.

While the changes are expected to improve traffic flow and accommodate the agency’s estimates of traffic volumes through 2045, Marsch said they are necessary mostly because the state has severe safety concerns about the corridor.

ODOT has included the section on its Highway Safety Improvement Program List for Priority Segments, and some intersections are on the agency’s HSIP Priority Intersections List. Marsch also said six intersections along the corridor are ranked in the top

50 of the Governor’s Safety Priority List.

“In our five-year study, there were nearly 1,900 crashes throughout this corridor,” he said.

Marsch said 30 percent of those resulted in an injury, including three fatalities. There also were 12 crashes involving bicycles and pedestrians. Marsch said 14 percent of the crashes were left-turn crashes and 11 percent were sideswipe passing crashes that resulted from left-hand turns across traffic.

“If we can save even one life from this project, it will be worth it,” Marsch said.

The website states the new project is the result of several studies conducted within the last 20 years. Those include a 2007 corridor study, a 2017 signal timing study, a 2018 corridor transportation systems monitoring and operations study in 2018, and a corridor safety study in 2022.

Over the past 25 years, ODOT has implemented some short-term fixes along the stretch, including widening the road to include right turning lanes between Boardman Park and South Avenue in 2001; an eastbound right turning lane at Market Street in 2011; a westbound bypass right turning lane at Interstate 680 in 2014, and signal retiming in 2017 and 2022.

PROJECT DETAILS

The proposed project will be paid for by ODOT Preservation and Safety funds, ODOT’s Transportation Review Advisory Council, and the Eastgate Council of Governments. The website estimates that the project will cost $3 million for design, $3 million to obtain necessary right-of-way for the new traffic lanes, and $14.3 million for construction.

The plan is to widen 224 to three eastbound lanes along the entire corridor, and three westbound lanes between South Avenue and Southern Boulevard, maintaining two westbound lanes west of Southern Boulevard.

The project will install median strips with right and left turning lanes, and U-turn access at Marinthana Avenue and the western entrance to the Shops at Boardman Park.

The project also will dramatically reduce the number of driveway left turns along the corridor.

The agency cites studies showing that as driveways and intersections in a corridor decrease, so do crashes. Median strips have been linked to a 27 percent annual decrease in crashes and a 46 percent annual decrease in crashes involving pedestrians, according to ODOT data.

The project also will remove the traffic lights at California Avenue, Southern Park Mall and Applewood Commons, citing studies that show reductions in red lights along corridors also are linked to reductions in crashes and improved traffic flow.

“Each time traffic is required to stop, this adds to congestion and queuing along the corridor, which contributes to crashes,” Marsch said. “There are many benefits to signal removals, including reduced conflict points, reduced delays, and more consistent traffic flows that together contribute to a reduction in the total number of crashes occurring.”

Marsch said that each of the intersections where signal removals are proposed will be converted to right-in/right-out movements to maintain business and roadway access while eliminating problems caused by left turns.

The project proposes completing the westbound improvements first, and then the eastbound. ODOT says two lanes of traffic will be maintained in each direction throughout the project and most work will be done during off-peak hours. The agency said business access will be maintained at all times.

The project will involve strip takes and landscaping casualties necessary to accommodate the new lanes of traffic, and right-of-way acquisitions are scheduled to begin in the spring. Business owners will be notified. The agency said no buildings will be taken and no businesses will be relocated.

The project, if finalized, will begin in spring of 2026 and is scheduled to run through fall of 2027.

Marsch said the public is encouraged to review the proposal and provide feedback.

“Our virtual public meeting runs through March 1, and we encourage folks to view the proposed project, and if they have any comments or questions, to reach out,” he said. “Feedback from people who drive this stretch every day is very important.”

TOWNSHIP CONCERNS

Township Administrator Jason Loree said he and township trustees are well aware of the traffic issues with 224, but were surprised by the numbers from ODOT’s five-year study.

“I think we’ve all just become accustomed to it, but quite honestly, looking at the counts, they are jarring,” he said. “Anything we can do to make traveling through Boardman safer, we want to do it.”

But Loree said he is worried that ODOT may not be fully aware of how the corridor operates and its proposed fixes may not serve the community as well as it thinks.

“I don’t have a lot of options on what ODOT wants to do, except to advise and update them,” Loree said. “I even recommended that I would be willing to drive their engineering team through here at peak times so that they can see what we see. We’ve given them our concerns. And they’re trying to accommodate us.”

Loree said that while he is worried about business access, he is even more concerned with how the changes will affect the township’s safety services.

“One of the things we emphasized with our comments to ODOT was ‘how can we ensure our safety forces can get where they need to go with these changes’,” he said. “We were assured the center median would be driveable for police and fire trucks to get across the roadways.”

Loree said the proposed changes will make an enormous impact and it will take time for everyone to learn the new 224.

“Our officers and firefighters as well as our citizens, we will need to get used to the new routes,” he said. “They listen to us to a point, but for ODOT to improve their safety numbers, they’re going to proceed based on what they believe is the best practice.”

However, Loree said the changes are not yet written in stone, and like Marsch, he encourages everyone to view the proposal on ODOT’s website and make their voices heard.

“The virtual public meeting has potential to reach more people but they need to be aware of it. We feel it’s important that everyone gets a chance to review this,” he said. “These changes are going to come, and if your input is not in there, well…there’s only three trustees, but there’s 40,213 residents, so now is when numbers count.”