At a recent event, Gov. Kasich was joined by legislators, members of the County Engineers Association of Ohio, and the International Operating Engineers Local 18 to announce the investment of $120 million over three years to repair or replace more than 200 bridges. The Dispatch has more below:
The Ohio Department of Transportation will use $120 million that normally would go to state road projects to pay for repairs to 220 bridges over the next three years.
State leaders said yesterday that $600 million in savings at ODOT over the past two years and a $71 million federal infusion helped make the program possible. The funds won’t fix every bridge in the state, but the plan could take a chunk out of the thousands of bridges in Ohio that are passable but still need repair.
“We can’t do everything, but $120 million over the next three years is a really big deal,” Gov. John Kasich said at a news conference.
There are about 44,000 bridges statewide, including about 27,000 that counties and cities maintain. About 5,700 of those bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.
As construction costs have risen, county funding for bridge repairs has been stretched too thin to keep up with repairs, said Franklin County Engineer Dean Ringle.
ODOT is stepping in to try to stem the tide of bridge projects that have been piling up for counties and cities.
Next year, the state will pay for repairs on 40 bridges — 10 for cities and 30 for counties — across the state, including five in central Ohio.
And
ODOT Director Jerry Wray said, “This investment is going to pay benefits to millions of people — millions of Ohioans — for decades to come.”
That includes construction workers and contractors who will compete for bridge-repair jobs, said Chris Runyan, president of the Ohio Contractors Association. Design, construction and maintenance of transportation infrastructure supports about 109,000 full-time jobs, which earn about $4.2 billion a year in payroll, he said.
And
“It’s not going to solve the problem, but it’s going to jumpstart it,” said Fred Pausch, executive director of the County Engineers Association of Ohio. “We’ve still got a long way to go, but this is a very positive step.”
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