$6 million county road project targets safety, flooding issues

Jun. 19—A planned Clark County project expected to cost more than $6 million is designed to reduce serious crashes and frequent flooding issues.

Clark County Engineer John Burr said the improvements to Spangler Road in Bethel Twp. are in the active design phase now, but work likely will not start until 2026.

He compared the 3.1-mile Spangler project to work done in the last decade to Lower Valley Pike for similar safety reasons.

"First, it was Lower Valley, and we came in there and did that," Burr said, "and it's worked."

The crashes are down and the area is safer, he said.

For Spangler Road, officials conducted a safety study in 2020 that resulted in a 178-page report used to seek funds for changes. It determined that the road was the third-highest ranked for rural crashes in the county, noting utility poles within 3 to 5 feet of the road and curved segments that contributed to 21% of the crashes vs. a statewide average of 5%.

"We did that study first to determine what we needed to do," Burr said.

The planned upgrades include widening the shoulders, relocating fixed objects such as utility poles next to the road, and adding rumble strips, edge lines and improved lighting at intersections.

Spangler Road will be elevated out of the 100-year flood plain, too, addressing a frequent concern by residents in the area.

Clark County Commissioner Lowell McGlothin said the Spangler Road improvements will be a major project that will be a "giant help" to residents.

"It's obvious that it needs to be worked on," he said. "I'm overjoyed that it is going to be done."

McGlothin said safety and flooding issues in the area have been a focus for him since he was first elected commissioner in 2016.

"It seems like as soon as it rains, that part of the highway floods. It's been a problem forever," he said.

Burr said Spangler is often the first road in the county to flood when rains hit, so much so that he has alerts texted to his phone when monitors upstream show the potential for trouble on Spangler.

"We kind of have a pretty good system for knowing when it will flood," he said.

The road's proximity to the Estel Wenrick Wetlands Preserve and the Leadingham Prairie Preserve complicates work, Burr said.

"It starts getting more involved" with regulations to follow, he said.

Burr said a variety of sources will fund the project, including $1 million in ARPA money directed from Clark County commissioners, plus Ohio Department of Transportation funds that will total about $3 million and roughly $900,000 in local money. The County Engineers Association of Ohio is also supporting the work.

Spangler Road is north of the junction of Interstates 675 and 70. Work is planned from Restoration Park Drive past Union Road and to Medway.

Burr noted the four-lane I-675 (65 mph) terminates into the 55 mph Spangler, a two-lane county road the later turns into Medway-Carlisle Road, which later turns into Ohio 571.

"It's a weird situation," he said.

McGlothin said more houses are planned to be built in New Carlisle, which means more people will travel in the area.

"It's a route that is used all the time," he said, "and it will get more traffic."

Burr's staff is also planning improvements to Medway-Carlisle Road in the area of Spangler Road, but the two projects needed to be split because of costs and complexities. The design process for the second project will not start for another year, he said, but it will be much like the Spangler work.

The safety study that included Spangler Road and Medway-Carlisle Road showed 56 crashes in the area in three years from 2016-2018, including two fatal crashes.

The goal of the safety measures planned is to reduce the number of crashes in the area by 10 per year, the study said.

"We think this work should alleviate a lot of the issues we see there," Burr said.