Garfield Park traffic signal censor fixed

Construction damage led to faulty cycle, backups during farmers market

Construction in front of Garfield Park may have actually been a boon to business at the first Mentor Farmers Market of the season, according to one city official.

The market opened June 2 amid a project to widen the roadway and create a left-turn lane on Route 20 at the Garfield Park/Lucretia Court intersection, just east of Great Lakes Mall. The traffic light will be updated as well.

Work began May 10 on the project, which is intended to improve traffic flow and reduce the number of rear-end collisions in front of the heavily used park. For now, though, it is causing backups on Route 20, which is down to one westbound lane.

That was exacerbated June 2 and part of June 3 after the contractor unknowingly damaged a traffic censor that controls how often the signal in front of the park changes. Normally, it only turns red for Route 20 traffic when there is a car waiting to exit the park.

The damage caused the light to go into “fail-safe” mode, acting as if a car was constantly sitting at the park exit.

“The signal thinks there’s a car waiting to get out of the park, so it was interrupting the traffic flow on (Route 20) considerably,” Mentor Engineer Dave Swiger said. “We discovered it Saturday afternoon that the loop was damaged and needed to be repaired, so it was repaired on Saturday.” The project originally was to be done last fall, so as to avoid high season at the park, but there were delays relocating some utility poles on the north side of the roadway.

“We were able to delay the work until now with no increase to the contract amount,” Swiger said. “At this point, we did not consider delaying it until the following fall due to the availability of the contractor.”

Stow-based Karvo Companies won the bid with a price of $525,346. The project failed to attract any bidders the first time it was advertised.

The scheduled completion date for the road work is June 30, weather permitting, with the traffic signal due to be done by Aug. 14.

The curb is to be removed along the north side of the road this week, and the westbound curb lane is expected to remain closed throughout June, Swiger said. Lanes will be closed as needed during traffic signal work.

“With the correction made to the traffic censor, traffic should not be impacted as much as it was this past weekend,” he said.

The street sees about

The street sees about 22,000 vehicles daily, on average, and there are an estimated 600 cars at Garfield Park per day during the spring and summer.

22,000 vehicles daily, on average, and there are an estimated 600 cars at Garfield Park per day during the spring and summer.

Some market patrons mentioned their wait, but it didn’t appear that construction was deterring people, Market Spokeswoman Linda Wintersteller said. She estimated 250 customers and about 40 vendors were on hand.

“If anything, we had more people turn in because they were stopped there in traffic and saw what was going on,” she said.

The event, at 7967 Mentor Ave., runs from 2 to 6 p.m. on Fridays through Sept. 29. The market features a variety of fruits and vegetables, fresh baked goods, jams and jellies, syrups, honey, olive oil, other produce-related products, and arts and crafts vendors. Knifesharpening services will be offered weekly.

This is the third year for the event at Garfield. Previous locations included Mentor Civic Center — 2013-2014 — and the James A. Garfield National Historic Site the eight years prior.

For more information on the Mentor Farmers Market, call 440-974-5735 or visit mentorfarmersmarket.com.