Gates on Rothrock Road Closing This Week

Fairlawn's long-in-coming plan to close Rothrock Road to through traffic will take place this Friday.

Deputy Service Director Ernie Staten said the city will install plastic barricades and pylons called delineators west of the intersection of Sawgrass Drive and Rothrock Road on July 19.

At the same time, gates at the intersection of Rothrock and Rosemont Boulevard will close.

Signs will be erected advising motorists of the road closure.

It's been more than a year since the city first tried to block Rothrock to through traffic -- a project spurred by Walmart's decision to move to the north end of the street, in Copley Township.

Copley sued over the road closing, arguing, in part, that the gates would slow down emergency crews responding to police and fire calls.

In June, Fairlawn won the court battle with Copley Township over the right to block Rothrock to through traffic, successfully arguing the residential nature of the neighborhood would not be preserved once the new Walmart and Sam's Club open.

On June 24, about 30 safety officials from neighboring communities gathered in Fairlawn to learn how to operate the set of gates on Rosemont Boulevard.

Staten showed police and fire authorities from Bath, Copley, Akron, Summit County, the Ohio Highway Patrol and Norton how to get the gates to lift in an emergency.

"We heard the concerns . . . and we thought this would be the best way for Copley mutual aid (to get through)," Staten said.

By pressing a button on a walkie-talkie, a police officer or firefighter can activate the gate to lift up for 30 seconds. 

Another option -- for a more serious situation, when other vehicles will be arriving soon -- makes the gates stand open indefinitely.

On the other end, at Sawgrass Drive, traffic will be blocked by water-filled barricades and 24 reboundable tubular pylons. Safety vehicles can drive through the pylons, which will bend and then bounce back to their original position.

"You can run these over at any speed and they will pop back up," Staten said.

It will be illegal for anyone but a safety worker to run over the pylons.

Staten said neither way of accessing Rothrock will mean more than a few-second delay.

The gates have safety features like electric eyes and bounce back up if they encounter an obstruction as they close. They have a battery back-up, but also can be manually lifted by inputting a code.

Fairlawn Council President Russ Sharnsky said the purpose of the gates are to protect the residents in the neighborhoods from a surge in traffic.

"It just changes the traffic flow a little bit -- pushes it out into the streets that were designed to handle it," he said.