Road projects get boost from TID
Transportation board helps fund county road projects
Members of Medina County’s Transportation Improvement District Board discuss a new round of grant applications. Photo by GLENN WOJCIAK
MEDINA – Medina County’s Transportation Improvement District is seeking applications for up to $250,000 in funding to help with local road projects.
TID board members met at the Medina County Highway Engineer’s Office Nov. 20 to discuss potential road improvement projects and an offer from the Ohio Department of Transportation to purchase a small TID-owned parcel of land at the southwest corner of Foote Road and state Route 18.
Board members voted to follow the recommendation of Highway Engineer Andy Conrad and TID Board Chairman Conrad Sarnowski to donate the parcel to ODOT for its Route 18 widening project rather than accept the $30,000 purchase offer.
Conrad said the TID originally acquired the land with ODOT funds when the district undertook a project to improve Foote Road two decades earlier.
“It doesn’t seem right to charge them for land they essentially bought for us in the first place,” Conrad said of the decision not to accept payment for the Foote Road parcel which is less than a half-acre in size.
Conrad also announced that the TID would be accepting applications for assistance with road improvement projects. There is a May deadline for the next round of funding. “Townships and cities that have road work coming up should begin thinking about applying,” Conrad said.
Road departments seeking funding could get 25 percent of a project’s cost up to a maximum of $250,000 funded by a TID grant.
ODOT has made about $4.5 million available to the 22 TIDs around the state so not all applications for funding are automatically approved. However, the Medina County TID was able to get a $250,000 grant last year to help repave South Industrial Parkway in Brunswick.
The TID also was approved for a $30,000 grant to repave part of Normandy Park Drive in Montville Township two years ago and $199,000 to rebuild Wegman Drive in Liverpool Township three years ago.
Bethany Dentler is a member of the TID board and also director of the Medina County Economic Development Corporation. Applications for TID funding seem to fare well when they have a commercial or economic development component. She said a big commercial development being planned in the southern part of the county may seek a TID grant next year, but those plans are not yet definite.
Medina Economic Development Director Kimberly Marshall also raised the prospect of the TID helping to fund a traffic study that could lead to the construction of a new Interstate 71 interchange south of the existing interchange at Route 18.
The proposal for a new interchange to alleviate truck traffic on Route 18 in Medina has been around for years, but has not had much support from ODOT which has said in past years it could not justify funding for the project.
Conrad said a traffic study could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and still might not produce the justification required by ODOT to consider a new interchange. He said a recent I-71 corridor study done by the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency suggested that a new highway interchange would not be the most cost-effective way to address traffic problems in the Medina area.
However, Conrad said he was willing to talk to Medina officials about ways in which the TID could work with the city on traffic issues.
TID board members met at the Medina County Highway Engineer’s Office Nov. 20 to discuss potential road improvement projects and an offer from the Ohio Department of Transportation to purchase a small TID-owned parcel of land at the southwest corner of Foote Road and state Route 18.
Board members voted to follow the recommendation of Highway Engineer Andy Conrad and TID Board Chairman Conrad Sarnowski to donate the parcel to ODOT for its Route 18 widening project rather than accept the $30,000 purchase offer.
Conrad said the TID originally acquired the land with ODOT funds when the district undertook a project to improve Foote Road two decades earlier.
“It doesn’t seem right to charge them for land they essentially bought for us in the first place,” Conrad said of the decision not to accept payment for the Foote Road parcel which is less than a half-acre in size.
Conrad also announced that the TID would be accepting applications for assistance with road improvement projects. There is a May deadline for the next round of funding. “Townships and cities that have road work coming up should begin thinking about applying,” Conrad said.
Road departments seeking funding could get 25 percent of a project’s cost up to a maximum of $250,000 funded by a TID grant.
ODOT has made about $4.5 million available to the 22 TIDs around the state so not all applications for funding are automatically approved. However, the Medina County TID was able to get a $250,000 grant last year to help repave South Industrial Parkway in Brunswick.
The TID also was approved for a $30,000 grant to repave part of Normandy Park Drive in Montville Township two years ago and $199,000 to rebuild Wegman Drive in Liverpool Township three years ago.
Bethany Dentler is a member of the TID board and also director of the Medina County Economic Development Corporation. Applications for TID funding seem to fare well when they have a commercial or economic development component. She said a big commercial development being planned in the southern part of the county may seek a TID grant next year, but those plans are not yet definite.
Medina Economic Development Director Kimberly Marshall also raised the prospect of the TID helping to fund a traffic study that could lead to the construction of a new Interstate 71 interchange south of the existing interchange at Route 18.
The proposal for a new interchange to alleviate truck traffic on Route 18 in Medina has been around for years, but has not had much support from ODOT which has said in past years it could not justify funding for the project.
Conrad said a traffic study could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and still might not produce the justification required by ODOT to consider a new interchange. He said a recent I-71 corridor study done by the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency suggested that a new highway interchange would not be the most cost-effective way to address traffic problems in the Medina area.
However, Conrad said he was willing to talk to Medina officials about ways in which the TID could work with the city on traffic issues.
