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At peak traffic hours, cars on Lakeview Avenue in New Boston can be backed-up for several blocks. Traffic has been detoured from 139 since March, and now Lakeview too will begin roadwork.

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RYAN SCOTT OTTNEY

PDT Staff Writer

NEW BOSTON — The state road construction on Ohio 139 in New Boston is going well, reported Village Administrator Steve Hamilton to New Boston Village Council during their meeting Tuesday night, and should be complete by the end of October. But before traffic gets any better, it’s going to get a little bit worse as the county is now also about to begin a repaving project on Lakeview Avenue.

“They are welding the last steel plates now to the girders. They’re welding those up right now, and in another two or three days, they’ll be completed. They have to go in on top of the wood wall they already got there, they have to put a concrete water trough to the catch basin,” Hamilton said. “Those walls, the old and the new will meet (in the middle) and that’s where the catch basin is going to be. Both walls is supposed to drain in the middle and go to the storm sewer right down Park Avenue and hit our 54-inch line.”

Once the drainage is complete, the state work crews will pour a one-foot thick concrete wall over the wood and metal supports that hold back the hillside. Hamilton said the entire project, which started in March, could finally be done be the end of October.

“Then they start the grinding, milling, and asphalt work (on 139),” he said.

While the project remains active, traffic on 139 has been detoured to Lakeview Avenue. New traffic lights were installed at the intersection of Lakeview and Rhodes Avenue to handle the increased traffic. And that traffic could soon be increased even more. Hamilton said the county will begin its Lakeview repaving project within the next three weeks. During that time, Lakeview will be reduced to one lane of traffic.

“They told me one week to eight working days is all it should be tied up,” Hamilton said.

When asked why the Lakeview project can’t wait until the 139 project has finished, Scioto County Engineer Craig Opperman explained that the county and the village applied last year for state funding to repave Lakeview, and the 139 project was not expected to have lasted as long as it has. He said the state awarded a 50-50 matching funds grant in the amount of $148,000 for the project, and New Boston is paying half.

That state funding, Opperman said, will expire if the Lakeview project has not started by Oct. 1. He said he does not have an exact start date scheduled yet, but it would have to be before that deadline.

The Shelly Company, of Thornville, Ohio, is the company hired by the state for 139 repaving, and also by the county for Lakeview repaving.

Ryan Scott Ottney can be reached at 740-353-3101, ext. 235, or rottney@heartlandpublications.com.