City of Kent to Start Street and Sidewalk Program
The City of Kent will start a $1.6 M street and sidewalk program in summer of 2018. consisting of multiple repairs and updates throughout the city.
The program will include streets being repaved, sidewalk repairs and streets receiving pavement repairs and seal coat treatments. The streets included in the program are preliminary and not completely finalized according to Jim Bowling, the City of Kent Engineer.
Currently, the St. Rt. 43 construction is about to begin, meaning that there will be light signal updates and the section at St. Rt. 261 that will be widened. In addition to the construction at St. Rt. 43 and 261, The Ohio Department of Transportation stated in an advisory, “SR 261 between the Summit County line and the eastern Kent Corporation limit has various daily lane restrictions for resurfacing. This work is part of a $1.4 million project to resurface SR 261 in Brimfield Township and the City of Kent. The entire project is scheduled to be completed by late June 2018.”
Find out what the city of Kent has planned for their Street and Sidewalk Program for summer and fall 2018. #JMCRPP
— Caleigh Marten (@CaleighMarten) May 9, 2018
There will be eight streets paved over the course of the summer and fall seasons. Those streets include: Colleen Drive, Lowell Drive, West College Avenue, Cherry Street, Dodge Street, Dansel Street, South Lincoln Street and Horning Road.
“Previous construction done on and near Lincoln Street has made my commute to class and work double in distance and the amount of time that it takes to get there.” Xenikis said. “I am happy to see that they will be fixing so many potholes in the area, though. I am always worried about my car being affected by the giant dips that my tires have to go through when I go somewhere in town.”
College Ave is located off of North Lincoln Street, and has several pot holes along the road that many, especially residents on the street will be happy to see repaired.
“Most college students are known for having little money and old cars. I being one of those students, have a hand me down car that I need to keep running so I can make it to school, work and back home,” said Courtney Bandeen, a West College Avenue resident. “College Ave isn’t just filled with potholes but craters so deep that I can see the once brick road underneath. The road conditions could easily damage my car and leave me asking for rides from friends. It would be a bring peace of mind to me if the road was fixed.”
The city of Kent repaves and makes repairs to the roads every year. In some cases the repairs are funded through grants and city funds, this year, they will be completely funded through city funds.
In addition to the roads that are being repaved, some will have concrete repairs and/or a seal coat applied to them. There will be 17 streets included in this part of the program. According to Bowling, some of them are: Irma St., Norwood St., Meadow Dr. and Overbrook Dr. In addition to the streets being repaved, these repairs and seal coat locations are not completely finalized.
The repairs will be outsourced by the city through different contractors. Bowling said that there will be contracts for each project, one for each within the program. “There will be one contract to do the concrete work, such as the sidewalks. There will be one to do the pavement work, one to do the seal coat work and so on,” Bowling said.
The street and sidewalk program is expected to start in Summer of 2018 following the start of construction on St. Rt. 43. The construction being completed on Water Street is set to begin prior to the street and sidewalk program but will likely overlap in its timeline. For more in depth information regarding the Water Street project click here.
