Fairlawn Revives Plans to Widen Cleveland-Massillon Road

Fairlawn will dust off 20-year-old plans to widen Cleveland-Massillon Road and seek funding to get the project moving. 

Mayor William Roth said this week the city is seeking a grant from the Akron Metropolitan Area Transportation Study to widen Cleveland-Massillon to five lanes between I-77 and Route 18.

"The good news is, the vast majority of the plans are already done," Roth said. 

The plans were drawn up in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but -- with some updating -- will still serve, he said.

EPA studies will have to be redone, and calculations will have to be translated from the metric system -- at the time, it was required to prepare plans that way -- into feet and miles.

That section of road is currently ranked No. 1 in traffic congestion in the area, city officials said.

AMATS could find funding to pay about 90 percent of the project cost.

"That's why we're going after this so seriously," Deputy Service Director Ernie Staten said.

And preliminary discussions with the planning agency indicate the project will get support.

"They're very interested in getting us in the pipeline and getting us going," Staten said.

Projects submitted now are being considered for funding in 2018. But Staten said the urgency of situation -- and the fact that plans are already nearly done -- could bump the job up on the list a bit.

"We may get moved up a little because of the volume of traffic there now," he said.