4/14/11 ODOT Bunker Hill project off to a late start
By Nick Sabo
April 14, 2011
269
Wet weather has led to a late start for the Bunker Hill/U.S. Route 62 relocation project.
Saturated soils on the hilltop intersection of U.S. 62 and County Road 77 have held up work on the $3 million project, but officials with ODOT are confident that the Oct. 11 completion date will be met.
Crews with Fechko Excavating Inc., started work in August of last year. Work scheduled for spring is a little behind schedule, Holmes/Tuscarawas ODOT Supervisor Rick Allison said.
Theres no sense moving any dirt when its all saturated, Allison said. The timeline is looking pretty good. (Fechko) may have to throw in a few more hours, but we should get it done on time.
The project is designed to take care of sight distance issues that placed the intersection on ODOTs radar as one of District 11s most hazardous.
To correct the sight distance problems, Fechko will drop the crown of the hill by 12 feet and slide the intersection slightly to the east. County Road 77 will be moved out in a bow-shaped path east by 162 feet from its present north-south orientation before reconnecting with the old roadway. The county road will run along an existing creek for 560 feet atop a 10 foot by eight foot box culvert.
The by-passed section of roadway will be abandoned, Allison said.
The intersection of County Road 168 and U.S. 62 will also be improved as part of the project.
Initial design on the project dates back more than five years ago. To make way for the improvements, nine structures were removed from the area of the current intersection.
The length of the box culvert makes it the longest bridge in Holmes County, county engineer Chris Young said.
Though it is a box culvert, it is considered a bridge, Young said, noting that many existing bridges in the county were built with the same structural design. Young said most bridges in the county tend to average between 20 feet and 30 feet long.
Care of both County Road 77 and the bridge will fall to the engineers office once the project is completed.
The culvert was installed last year and sits one foot below the stream channel, allowing a natural bed of sediment to gradually settle in.
The project will require at least four separate road closures with posted detour routes, District 11 spokesperson Becky Giauque said. The first of these will be closure of County Road 168 between County Road 77 and Township 401 for reconstruction of the County Road 77/County Road 168 intersection. The closing is scheduled for 14 days beginning April 25.
The closures will be announced as they occur, Giauque said. Allison said the schedule for the next closures will be on U.S. 62, then County Road 77, followed by a second closure of U.S. 62.
The closures will average two to four weeks, Giauque said.
