Ohio 4 milling, paving work in Fairfield to start Sunday

Paving on Ohio 4 is set to soon begin, but crews will first mill the roadway along the northern corporation line with the Hamilton.

Fairfield City Engineer Ben Mann said while this project is coming toward its end — and expected to be wrapped up by Aug. 20 in time for the start of school — “there’s still tons of asphalt to be put down.”

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“Weather permitting, we’ll do the inside lanes from one end to the other to have a nice continuous lane,” he said. “It will take (the contractor) a few nights to mill and put the pavement back at the same time.”

The near-$3.5 million project is part of a 4.5-mile repaving of Ohio 4 from Seward Road to the northern corporation line with Hamilton.

Contractor John R. Jurgensen will mill 3 inches of asphalt off the roadway beginning Sunday night after the evening rush hour through the night to limit traffic disruption, and then replace 1.5 inches of asphalt.

Paving 4.5 miles will take more than one week to complete, according to Mann.

“They’ll mill and pave each night for more than a week,” he said.

The final 1.5 inches of asphalt will take about one week to complete, Mann said.

All work is weather permitting.

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“We’re excited about it,” said City Councilman Chad Oberson, chair of the public works council subcommittee. “It took a long time to get the work done; we got the ground under the road stabilized, we got the water lines fixed, we got all that stuff done that would have caused problems in the future.”

Message boards notifying motorists of the work have been placed on Ohio 4 near Bishop Avenue and just south of Seward Road.

The project also includes a modification to the Ohio 4 intersection at Bypass Ohio 4 due to accidents heading north on Ohio 4. The right-turn yield lane was removed for traffic heading north on Ohio 4 to eastbound on the bypass.

Fairfield is paying $2 million toward the project, while the Ohio Department of Transportation chipped in the rest with an urban paving program grant and a $50,000 state safety grant.

This is the third consecutive year there’s been some significant work performed on Ohio 4.

Last year, a 2-mile stretch of Ohio 4 — from Nilles Road to Bypass Ohio 4 — was under construction to replace a cast iron water main that was prone to breaks. That was one of the city’s most critical projects in 2017 as a disproportionate number of the city’s nearly 200 water main breaks occurred on Ohio 4.

In 2016, the intersection of Holden Boulevard/South Gilmore Road and Ohio 4 was realigned, and Duke Energy did some utility work near that intersection.

The next significant project for Ohio 4 isn't scheduled until 2022 or 2023 when the Michael Lane/Camelot Drive intersection is realigned. Oberson said this project "is the only other piece that's hanging out there" that needs to be address along the Ohio 4 corridor.

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