FAIRVIEW PARK, Ohio -- When one thinks of bridges in Fairview Park, tall structures traversing the valley below come to mind.

However, these are not the structures associated with City Council’s recently passed ordinance joining the Ohio Department of Transportation’s (ODOT) Municipal Bridge Inspection Program.

“We have four city bridges going over a small creek, so they’re not huge,” Mayor Eileen Ann Patton said. “Residents don’t even know they’re driving over a bridge.

“The Coe Creek Waterway runs underneath. Our service department was worried about deterioration on two of them, so we hired bridge inspection company Euthenics.”

The city paid $5,300 for the inspection of the West 227th Street and Sherwood Drive bridges, which Patton said are basically culverts.

Euthenics recommended that the weight limit be lowered on each bridge. This affects large-truck traffic -- including the city’s fire trucks, ambulances, garbage trucks and service vehicles.

“We’ll have to do a little maneuvering,” Patton said. “The snowplows can only go so far and then they’ll turn around and go around the block to get it from the other end. Of course, any emergency calls will go over as necessary.”

The Euthenics report was sent to ODOT, which then reached out to the city about joining the state’s Municipal Bridge Inspection Program for communities with a population of 50,000 people or fewer.

“ODOT is going to pay 100 percent of the cost for the bridge inspection,” Patton said. “That’s going to save us $10,600, because we have two more bridges at Robinhood and Seabury avenues to do next year.

“The city will pay 100 percent of the cost to put up the weight limit signs and then to do a parcel implementation of some soil.”

Erosion of soil around bridge foundations is an issue for all four structures, with the West 227th Street culvert being in the worst shape.

This led the city to move into the second step of the Municipal Bridge Inspection Program, which included applying for a $600,000 grant to replace the West 227th Street bridge.

“This would be with 2022 ODOT dollars, which actually become available in July 2021,” Patton said. “This is a very competitive grant. On our application, we included a lot of important facts, such as on average more than 3,000 cars use this road.

“We should hear soon if we receive it. We think our grant is good.”

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