Over $300,000 Grant Applications Accepted

Muskingum County has received two grants to expand upon and improve multiple roads across the county.

The first, and larger of the two grants is for an expansion of Bethesda Drive at the new Genesis Hospital. The Muskingum County Transportation Improvement District received $250,000 which is the maximum it could receive for the $1.7 million project. Once completed, there will be a new emergency access road into the hospital.

The other project is a $64,971 grant for a project near the Wilds.

“With the advent of the Wilds and with the influx in traffic, the Wilds has approached me over the past few years about improving the condition of International Drive,” said Muskingum County engineer Doug Davis. “I don’t currently have it in my budget to do that because we are working on the other roads in the county as well, so through the board here [Wednesday], they were able to apply for funds and they were successful.”

Now, the county will begin the search for material bids for International Drive and Zion Ridge road. Davis said chip and seal could begin by early September. It’s work that is long over due as he said chip and seal roads should be replaced every four to eight years. However, it has been nine years since the last major work has been done to either of the roads.

“We’ve been pulling those funds because we’re suffering for our bridges,” Davis said. “I made a conscious decision I would rather have a good bridge on a roadway with a dirt road than to have a road paved with gold with no bridge, so I’ve actually been physically, we’ve been pulling money from our roadways in order to fix bridges in Muskingum County.”

Davis added that the county has many bridge replacement projects in the works, including the replacement of the Gaysport bridge which has been reduced to a single lane to keep cars off the very edge of the road.