A highway off ramp planned for a suburban residential street has neighbors in Strongsville speaking out.
Ever since ODOT announced $3.5 million in funding for a proposed ramp connecting Interstate 71 to Howe Road two weeks ago, neighbors who live in the area have been sounding off on the City of Strongsville’s Facebook page.
The ramp would help alleviate traffic congestion from cars exiting I-71 at Royalton Road near Southpark Mall, but it would empty out to Shurmer Road, a residential street with a 25 mile per hour speed limit.
“Well people are saying they can’t back out of their driveways now,” Don Costello said. "I don’t see how that’s going to help them at all.”
Costello worried traffic, that would normally use Royalton Road, would cut through Shurmer instead.
On Facebook, a number of residents asked why the interchange couldn’t be built somewhere else, including on Boston Road to the south, but a city engineer said the site was problematic because gas lines are in the way. Boston Road also borders Cuyahoga and Medina Counties, meaning multiple localities would have to work together to make it happen.
“The Boston Road interchange probably will never happen. This is the next best solution that problem,” Ward 4 Councilman Gordon Short said. “It used to just be at Christmas and holiday times, the 82 traffic would back up onto 71. Now it backs up consistently every weekend and sometimes in the evenings.”
Plans call for construction to happen around 2019, but the city still need to secure more than $4 million in funding.
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