Wayne Avenue Updates

ZANESVILLE, Ohio – You may have noticed the Southbound Lane of Wayne Avenue is closed and there is no exact timeline of when it will be reopened.

There are slips where the road is sliding down into the river that are below the homestead parcel. City Engineer Chip Saunders said it continues to slide despite their sandstone barriers and they are working on a long term fix.

“We wanted to keep that Northbound lane moving to keep access to the residences and businesses along the corridor and also because according to ODOT’s counts we’ve got 13,000 vehicles a day so there’s a strong movement on that road on the way to work in the morning,” Saunders said.

There is also a problem around Arcadia Lane where there is a culvert that goes underneath Wayne Avenue on the riverside and its old sandstone headwall is ready to fall into the river. The road is closed from Marietta all the way to the city limits. Mayor Jeff Tilton said they want to warn members of the community that it is dangerous to drive through their closed road barriers and they will be handing out tickets to violators.

“In the morning it’s not really that bad because people are coming in. In the evening, it sends traffic throughout the city,” Mayor Jeff Tilton said. “We’re trying to make it easier for those people, we know that Marietta Street has very small stacking so that we can’t get a lot of cars stopped at one time so we tried to back up the traffic signals as much as we can without having people stuck throughout the city.”

The city is currently developing plans and looking to acquire funding. Their goal is to get everything done by the end of this Summer before schools start back up again. Saunders and Mayor Tilton want to remind members of the community to plan ahead and prepare to take alternative routes.