Newark, home to roundabouts, to host roundabout conference

NEWARK – The city has not only become home to several roundabouts, with more to come, it will host a roundabout conference later this year.

Newark Development Partners Director Fred Ernest announced Wednesday between 150 to 200 visitors are expected to attend a roundabout conference in downtown Newark on Sept. 13.

The Licking County Chamber of Commerce hosted the first in its About Town series at The Works, focusing on recent improvements in Newark, which has become the 15th largest city in Ohio, with a population of more than 50,000.

The About Town series will showcase another Licking County community later this year.

The city installed four roundabouts on the Courthouse Square as part of a $22 million downtown utility project in 2015-2018, and plans to add three more roundabouts in the downtown area as part of its $28 million Fourth Street infrastructure project.

The new circular traffic routers will be located at Fourth and West Main streets, Fourth and West Church streets, and the five-points intersection of Granville, Fifth and West Locust streets. The five-points intersection will have a bean-shaped roundabout.

The Fourth Street project, much like the work around the Courthouse Square, will comply with an Environmental Protection Agency mandate to separate sanitary and storm sewers to prevent combined sewer overflows of sewage into the river.

The project extends from West National Drive at the South Fork Licking River, through downtown on Fourth Street, left to West Locust Street and onto Granville Street, ending at the bridge over Ohio 16. Construction will be done in phases, beginning in early 2020 and finishing in the fall of 2023.

The roundabouts will be larger than the ones on the Square, but still consist of just one lane all the way around.

The city also added a roundabout in 2017 on Sharon Valley Road, at the intersection with Evans Boulevard, which leads to Liberty Middle School and Legend Elementary School on the north and the campus of Ohio State University and Central Ohio Technical College to the south.

A roundabout will also be part of a new alignment for Cherry Valley Road, connecting Thornwood Crossing with Thornwood Drive at Reddington Road. The project includes a new bridge over Raccoon Creek, new roads up to the bridge and a roundabout at the intersection of the three roads.

Newark will also host the Heritage Ohio Conference on Oct. 20-23, when more than 400 visitors are expected.

kmallett@newarkadvocate.com

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Twitter: @kmallett1958