Procurement News Notice |
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| PNN | 5361 |
| Work Detail | With the Norfolk Southern railroad tracks moved onto their permanent route across the new McCord Road underpass, the project has entered its homestretch. The Ohio Department of Transportation’s contractor for the $23.4 million project — Beaver Excavating of Canton — has dug out much of the embankment that supported temporary “shoo-fly” tracks around the bridge while it was built. Once that’s out of the way, crews will start building the new roadway underneath, marking the project’s last major phase. “We’ve been moving right along,” said Dan Kelsey, ODOT’s project engineer, who estimated McCord’s reopening at sometime during the third or fourth week of October. Besides building the roadway, Mr. Kelsey said, work still to be done includes erecting wing walls on the south side of the underpass and “tying in all the drainage,” which includes hooking up a pump station to be built northeast of the bridge. “I keep on praying for good weather,” the state engineer said regarding the remaining work’s tight schedule. Some touchup, such as reseeding any grass that doesn’t take hold this fall, could occur in the spring before the project’s formal completion, he said. While ODOT is managing the project, it officially belongs to the Lucas County Engineer’s Office, and County Engineer Keith Earley said he’s pleased to see its schedule being met. “I’m very, very glad it’s going to be done soon,” he said Friday. “We had concerns about whether they were going to make that schedule.” Mr. Earley described the underpass as a “career project,” noting that he began working on drumming up funding for the underpass soon after his February, 2000, appointment to succeed George Wilson as county engineer. The project included relocating a county sewer main along McCord and building a modern roundabout at McCord’s intersection south of the tracks with Hall Street and North Mall Drive. The roundabout partially opened 12½ months ago, at the start of the 2015-16 school year, and will become fully operational as Lucas County’s first multilane roundabout outside the city of Toledo when the underpass opens. Two recent classes at the nearby Holland Branch Library explaining how to drive through such roundabouts were lightly attended, Mr. Earley said. For now, McCord traffic remains detoured via North Mall and Holland Park Boulevard, including a temporary railroad crossing on Holland Park. The railroad crossing will close permanently once the underpass opens. Along with relieving an estimated five hours of aggregate daily traffic delays from trains crossing McCord, the underpass will provide a safer route to school for children who live north of the tracks and walk to classes at Springfield Middle School or Springfield High School just south of them. On Dec. 16, 2009, two Springfield students unsuccessfully tried to run across the tracks in front of an Amtrak passenger train. The train killed Cody Brown, 15, and seriously injured Brianna Mullinger, then 16. |
| Country | United States , Northern America |
| Industry | Construction |
| Entry Date | 15 Oct 2016 |
| Source | http://www.toledoblade.com/local/2016/09/05/McCord-Road-project-near-its-last-phase.html |
