County plans $600,000 road project near Lefor

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Stark County officials are moving forward with a $600,000 project to improve a 4-mile strip of gravel road near Lefor.

“The project starts right north of Lefor on the east side of the Enchanted Highway,” said Tim Kelly of Kadrmas, Lee & Jackson, who is the project engineer.

The road is called 50th Street Southwest, Kelly said.

Construction is slated for this year and will impact wetlands in the area, he added.

“We run into that pretty much on every project that we do anymore,” Kelly said of the wetlands. “We’ve got a couple of them in some of the small drainages that we have to get a permit from the (Army) Corps of Engineers when we impact them.”

However, the section of road involved in the project doesn’t cross any major rivers or lakes.

“It’s a small little drainage that crosses the road that has wetland properties and therefore it’s considered a wetland,” Kelly said.

The project will alter the terrain of the land, which will impact the drainage, said Al Heiser, Stark County road superintendent.

Mitigation for the wetlands will have to be done, he added.

“Usually it just involves expanding the wetlands adjacent to where it is to make up for the road fill that you’re going to put in a couple of spots,” Kelly said.

The road will be gravel. It would cost an additional $1.8 million to pave it, Kelly said.

The project is funded through a county mill levy, Heiser said.

The road is too narrow and needs to be improved, he added.

“It’s a real major snow trap,” he said.

Many of the hills on the road get blocked with snow, making it hazardous in the winter, Heiser added.

“As you’re driving, some of the sight distance for driving is not what it should be,” Kelly added.

The project will cut down some hills a few feet and deepen ditches, he added.

“It doesn’t drain as well as it should and when you have snow like we’ve been having lately; the ditches fill up a lot faster when they’re shallow,” Kelly said. “This project is going to deepen the ditches a little bit. It’s going to knock some of the hills down, improve the safety of the road and improve the snow storage and the drainage.”

He expects the project to go out to bid in four to six weeks.

Tags: stark county, road construction, news, lefor