Construction to create closure, detour of Mill Creek Bike Trail for a year

A popular bike trail will be closed or detoured for approximately one year while construction crews work on the nearby turnpike. 

Mill Creek MetroParks announced Thursday that the bike trail will be closed near Kirk Road beginning Tuesday, July 17th.

According to park officials, the Ohio Turnpike and Infrastructure Commission will be replacing the turnpike bridges over the Bikeway. 

OTIC will replace the bridges with a large concrete arch culvert, thus creating a tunnel for the bikeway under the turnpike. 

A release says the project will be completed in two phases. 

During the first phase, pedestrians/bicyclists will not be able to travel south on the bikeway from Kirk Road Trailhead and pedestrians/bicyclists traveling north from Herbert Road will arrive at a “dead-end”. 

Cyclists traveling north will be met with a sign at Herbert Road alerting them that the trail will dead end ahead of the construction. 

The second phase of the project is anticipated to begin in November 2018 and includes construction of a detour for the bikeway. At that time, through access for pedestrians/bicyclists will be restored by means of the detour. 

Once OTIC’s project is totally completed in 2019, the detour will be removed and bikeway traffic will be routed through the new tunnel.

View the full article at wfmj.com