Coverage is often a team effort

Law allows for alliances

When it comes to maintenance and repair of the freeways, roads and bridges used every day in Northeast Ohio, the lines of jurisdiction are clear.

The Ohio Department of Transportation, specifically the ODOT District 12 office in Garfield Heights serving Lake, Cuyahoga and Geauga counties, is responsible for Interstate 90 and Interstate 271 as well as U.S. and state roads outside of municipal limits.

The engineer offices in Lake, Geauga and Cuyahoga counties are responsible for all county roads and for the roads in townships that do not have road departments and choose to engage the services of the county engineer to handle that job.

Cities and villages are responsible for the roads inside their corporate limits.

While those lines are clear, Ohio Revised Code provisions establishing those jurisdictions are flexible enough to allow ODOT, county engineer offices and local government entities to form common-sense alliances and share both the costs and responsibilities for road maintenance and repair.

A prime example of that flexibility is the longstanding arrangement between the Lake County Engineer’s Office and the six Lake County cities through which passes state Route 2,

also called the Lakeland Freeway.

Because that stretch of freeway falls within the municipal limits of Wickliffe, Willowick, Eastlake, Willoughby, Mentor and Painesville, by strict definition of the law it is the cities that are responsible for the care of the Route 2 surfaces within their city limits.

Since the early 1970s, Lake County Engineer James R. Gills explained, those cities have taken advantage of a provision that allows them to enter into agreements that hand over repair maintenance responsibilities on Route 2 to the county engineer.

Gills said costs for Route 2 repair and maintenance are shared on a 50-50 bases by the county engineer’s office and those six cities .

The total price tag annually for that work is $1.5 million to $1.6 million, Gills said.

At its easternmost end, Route 2 passes through Painesville Township. By law, ODOT is responsible for repair and maintenance of that stretch because it falls outside municipal limits.

Instead, the Lake County Engineer’s Office does the work for ODOT in exchange for an agreedupon quantity of road salt. This year, Gills said, that amount was 600 tons.

The upcoming project to re-surface Lakeshore Boulevard from just east of the Route 91 intersection to the Willoughby border also illustrates how multiple entities work together.

Lakeshore Boulevard is a state route passing through municipal limits, so it is Eastlake shouldering the responsibility for repair and maintenance of the stretch of road to be resurfaced.

Eastlake Mayor Dennis Morley said the city worked with the Ohio Public Works Commission to set up funding the $1.08 million project. OPWC provided 80 percent of the funding, with the city coming up with 20 percent..

The Lake County Engineer’s Office will work with ODOT to execute the project. Gills said his office engages the services of an engineer to generate the plans and specifications for the project, then reviews that plan before submitting the engineer’s work to ODOT District 12 for final approval.

When that project gets underway, probably in late July or early August, the engineer’s office will have a resident observers present on the job site every day.

Gills said his office also is responsible for working with ODOT to make sure all specifications have been met and all subcontractors have been paid before the job is given final approval.