At the heart of the Village of Alexandria, dump trucks and semis seem to always be barreling down the two-lane West Main Street. The road is lined with charming old homes, small businesses and a single traffic light. But it has been difficult for residents to enjoy a walk down the street with the sound of massive vehicles and dirt flying off the trucks.
On April 8, 2025, Alexandria Police Chief Dan Bunting posted on Facebook a dump truck count at the traffic light at West Main Street and Liberty Street.
“Tuesday, April 1st, 2025
9am – 10 am 92 Trucks
10am – 11 am 109 Trucks
Wednesday, April 8th, 2025
9 am – 10 am 124 Trucks,” Bunting’s post said.
“Sometimes you sit at the stop light and you’ll see, sometimes six, eight trucks, bumper to bumper, waiting at the stoplight, just idling there,” Sean Barnes, Mayor of Alexandria, said.
The increased traffic – caused in part by rapid development across western Licking County, the addition of new warehouses and data centers under construction, and the $28 billion Intel computer chip manufacturing plant development – is putting strain on Alexandria residents and the roads.
“Exposure to traffic-related air pollution (measured by nitrogen dioxide exposures) increases the risk of the development of childhood asthma,” according to a 2023 report from the Global Clean Air Initiative. “Freight trucks and buses make up around 10% of the vehicles on U.S. roads, but they are responsible for nearly half of the transportation sector’s nitrogen oxide emissions.”
And a 2014 report from the United States Environmental Protection Agency says “People who live, work or attend school near major roads appear to have an increased incidence and severity of health problems associated with air pollution exposures related to roadway traffic including higher rates of asthma onset and aggravation, cardiovascular disease, impaired lung development in children, pre-term and low-birthweight infants, childhood leukemia, and premature death.”
On Thursday, May 8, The Reporting Project observed 12 trucks drive by Alexandria’s village offices on Main Street between 10:50 a.m. and 11:15 a.m. – one every two minutes.
Barnes said the traffic is intense through such a small village and that the noise of the traffic is increasingly taxing on residents. He is concerned about the wear on the road from the excessive number of heavy trucks and debris going into the storm sewer.
“We’ve got to take extra time to make sure we keep those things cleaned out since we’re adjacent to a flood plain, so it puts a lot of strain on the residents and the village as a whole,” Barnes said.
Barnes said that residents who live along Main Street complain that they cannot open their windows because of the dust caused by the trucks. Carianne Meng, a member of Alexandria village council and the chair of the public safety committee, lives on West Main Street, so the traffic is unavoidable for her. Meng said there have always been trucks passing by because of the nearby Martin Trucking. But the truck traffic was never this bad.
“You can’t really sit on my front porch right now. It’s covered in dirt. It doesn’t matter how much I sweep it off. There’s no point in washing my windows or my screens because they’ll be clean for a day,” Meng said.
Meng watches the dump trucks drive by full of uncovered loads of dirt, and it all flies off the back of the truck.
In the last week, Meng has noticed three mailboxes on her side of the street are in smithereens.
“They obviously are not driving safely if they’re knocking mailboxes over and running people off the road,” Meng said.
Alexandria’s Main Street is also Ohio Rt. 37, meaning the Village of Alexandria does not have jurisdiction over the road – The Ohio Department of Transportation does. Alexandria has put in place ‘no through truck’ ordinances on Granville Street and College Street to manage some of the traffic. But they cannot do anything about the wear and tear on West Main street since it is ODOT’s territory.
“It might be nice for the residents to have that reduced traffic pressure,” Barnes said. “We really wish there was a possibility of a completely different route to get to where they’re going.”
Barnes knows that would be asking a lot but it would mean a lot to the welfare of the community. Meng said, although these trucks are driving on a route, it is a residential street. The road is lined with homes, and it includes crosswalks and bus stops.
“I would love to see a bypass that somehow avoids Alexandria but still allows truck traffic,” Meng said. “I don’t know what that would look like.”
Meng understands that truck drivers will pick the fastest route, and that if they picked another route, the truck traffic would affect other people. She said she wishes the truck drivers were more respectful of their community.
From Meng’s perspective, trucks seem to be running from 5 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., and it seems to be the heaviest at the beginning of the day and after lunch. Barnes’ children go outside to wait for the school bus stop at 7 a.m., and cement and dump trucks pass back and forth.
Barnes hopes that people understand that this is tricky, and the Village of Alexandria doesn’t have a lot of control over the situation.
“It feels like a problem with no solution when you’re dealing with a state route that runs through a small village,” Meng said.
Sarah Chaulk, a resident of St. Albans Township, is affected by the traffic every time she has to drive toward the village.
“I just tried to park in town there to get my hair cut, and I had 15 trucks pass by me with two individual automobiles in between the line. It’s like it was all trucks,” Chaulk said. “As many as there are … I just feel like there is an incident looming in our future.”
Caroline Zollinger writes for TheReportingProject.org, the nonprofit news organization of Denison University’s Journalism program, which is supported by generous donations from readers. Sign up for The Reporting Project newsletter here.