South Main Street Bridge Replacement

Route 46 concrete bridge on South Main Street before it was replaced in 1992. PO9.38

Work on bridge replacement.

South Main Street Bridge Replacement.
Niles Times October 19, 1992
Jim Flick

Replacement of the South Main Street bridge is nearly finished, according to Phil Crish, a project engineer with the Ohio Department of Transportation.

Crish said the new span is scheduled to open to traffic by November 15, although work at the site will probably continue until mid-June 1993. AAA Bridge Construction Company of Columbiana is the general contractor for the $700,000 project.

“Basically, we’re on the schedule we had projected,” Crish remarked.
The original target date was November 1, but the deadline is next June.

Crish said the project has gone on almost flawlessly, hampered only by the “minor problems” expected during any major construction project. “You solve them and go on.”
The concrete deck was poured on October 9 and concrete for the sidewalks was scheduled to be poured last Friday. ODOT (Ohio Department of Transportation) will pave in early November when the weather is right, Crish added.

Improvements Inspector, Mark Hess, has imposed an October 31 deadline for blacktopping in Niles. A bad paving job on East State Street laid down in December 1989, and repaved twice the following summer, prompted the deadline.

Temporary runaround of the
South Main Street bridge. PO1.2286

Crish said ODOT in not bound by Hess’ rule. “We go by temperature, not the date,” the ODOT engineer said. “All we need is two hours of 50-degree weather.”

The temporary runaround opened in July to carry traffic around the construction site will be removed over the winter, Crish said. The large concrete culverts used to span the Meander Creek will be removed for use in a future ODOT project.

The temporary runaround was not in ODOT’s original plans for the project. Merchants were outraged when they learned the state planned to detour traffic several miles around downtown Niles for several months, and protested to ODOT officials and state legislators.

After two public meetings at the McKinley Memorial, ODOT added the temporary runaround and its nearly $300,000 price tag to the project. Thanks to the temporary span, traffic has not been disrupted by the bridge replacement project. About 15,000 vehicles use the bridge each day, many of them trucks.

After the temporary runaround is removed, workers will clean up the site, including planting grass. The seeding will not be finished until next June, according to Crish.

The construction site is near the intersection of South Main Street and McKees Lane, about a half mile south of the Viaduct over the Mahoning River.

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PO1.2285

Work on the demolition of the old concrete bridge on South Main Street.

The runaround is visible in the foreground.

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The temporary runaround was constructed over large concrete culverts that allowed the flow of Meander Creek to be continue unobstructed.

When the construction of the new bridge was completed, these culverts were removed for use in other ODOT projects.

To read about the bridges in Niles, follow the link below:

Bridges of Niles