Wed Feb 08 2012
by Eric Marotta
Editor
Northfield Center -- Area officials and representatives from the Ohio Department of Transportation plan to meet May 16 to see if there is any way to provide emergency access to east Twinsburg Road, after a traffic tie-up last week led township officials to temporarily open Route 8 construction barricades to allow traffic into the area.
ODOT spokesperson Jerry Jones said area officials called to coordinate opening the barricade, which blocks off Twinsburg Road from Route 8, after a May 9 accident isolated two residential subdivisions.
However, Jones said that moving the barricade is "not an option" once construction intensifies in a few weeks. He said access to Twinsburg Road will be blocked by a 20-foot-tall berm of dirt as part of the department's construction of an overpass on Route 8 over Twinsburg Road.
But Northfield Center Trustee Paul Buescher said he is hoping transportation officials will find a way to provide access to Twinsburg Road at least for emergency vehicles, and added he has contacted ODOT District 4 Deputy Director Eric Czetli, County Council President Nick Kostandaras and U.S. Rep. Steve LaTourette to see if they can help.
Buescher noted the intersection, which closed last month, is scheduled to remain closed until work on the overpass is completed in 2008.
According to Fire Chief Robert Derrit, on May 9 around 1 p.m., a truck driver trying to negotiate a turn at the Walters/Twinsburg roads intersection knocked down a utility pole, cutting power to about 2,000 residents. The driver was not hurt, but the crash closed down the intersection, which meant residents in the nearby Brandywine Preserve and Rolling Brooke home subdivisions could not drive either east or west on Twinsburg Road.
Concerned that school buses could not deliver students to their homes -- and that emergency vehicles could not reach the neighborhood if needed -- Buescher said he, Derrit and Zoning Inspector Don Saunders pushed open the construction barricades to Route 8. He said the township arranged for a sheriff's deputy to assist with traffic control.
About 20 students from Nordonia Middle School and St. Barnabas were loaded onto a shuttle bus on Walters Road and driven to their homes through the opened barricade at Route 8. Three other buses were able to go through the barricade without transferring students to a shuttle, according to district transportation supervisor Dan Marling.
Marling said the district managed to get all the children home on time.
"We have a response plan," he said. "We have adequate people here."
But hundreds of residents were inconvenienced by the closure, said Buescher, and the Northfield Center Fire Department stationed an ambulance in the neighborhood until the power lines were repaired around 4:30 p.m.
"There were a lot of P.O.'d residents and I don't blame them a bit," Buescher told the News Leader May 10. "If something doesn't happen here soon, somebody is going to get hurt."
E-mail: emarotta@recordpub.com
Phone: 440-232-4055 ext. 4103
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