FAIRVIEW PARK, Ohio -- Exactly a year after an eroding hillside south of Lorain Road forced city officials to put up barricades along a portion of guardrail, Fairview Park Director of Public Service & Development Shawn Leininger said that this spring, further erosion has required the closing of the sidewalk.
“We’ve closed the area because the undermining of the hillside started to creep under the edge of the sidewalk,” Leininger said. “It was out of an abundance of caution we decided to close it. Even though it’s just now at the edge of the sidewalk, we didn’t want to have any risk to pedestrians.”
City Council recently approved an agreement with the Ohio Department of Transportation for the completion of the Lorain Road stabilization project next year, located along the Cleveland Metroparks’ Rocky River Valley between West 192nd Street and Story Road.
Marissa McDaid, ODOT District 12 public information officer, previously told cleveland.com that the entire project is estimated to cost $550,000, with funding for the 2020 work being 80 percent federal money and 20 percent state funds.
She noted that a similar project in 2008 repaired the slope to the west of the current area in question.
Last year, Fairview Park approved an expenditure of up to $30,000 for the city engineer to provide general engineering services -- including surveying, maintenance of traffic planning, sidewalk and curb replacement design, guardrail replacement design, and other general design and construction specifications -- toward the project.
Leininger said currently, the city is waiting for ODOT’s design and project start date.
As far as any further concern that hillside erosion could undermine the integrity of Lorain Road, Leininger said that’s not an issue.
“This project will get to it long before that,’ Leininger said. “There’s still quite a distance it would have to go. We don’t expect that, especially with the project in the planning stage and ready for implementation next year.
“ODOT is aware where the erosion has gotten to, so they’re very much in the loop about what’s going on. And if anything changes from where it is today, we’d certainly keep them in the loop and let them know the urgency and take appropriate action based on that.”
The erosion issue was discovered by city engineers a few years ago when they noticed a guardrail was starting to angle into the downward slope. Leininger said the stabilization project requires posts underneath the sidewalk and roadway driven deep into the ground to provide added support.
“We apologize for any inconvenience for people who use that sidewalk along the south side of the road,” Leininger said. “However, there is still access on the north side.”
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