New Burg Street closed at Rt. 661 on Monday, June 3, and will remain closed for much of the summer due to ongoing roundabout construction.
The closure, at the intersection of New Burg Street and North Pearl Street, will last for about 75 days, according to Village of Granville planners.
Detour signs have been posted throughout Granville, and the Granville Middle School and High School buildings will be accessible by traveling eastbound on New Burg from Burg Street.
The $2.1 million roundabout is the village’s first, and village planners anticipate it will be completed in November. It is designed to help alleviate traffic congestion along North Pearl and New Burg.
The Village of Granville’s Planning and Development Department has long recognized that there were issues with that intersection that affected traffic, pedestrian-vehicle interactions and air quality.
“We started watching the traffic at that intersection about seven years ago, so we recognized back then that it was queuing all the way (south) to College Street,” said Village Planner Debi Walker-Yost.
There is significant traffic on New Burg during morning and afternoon hours when school and commuter traffic peaks, and that is when the congestion occurred, according to a traffic study commissioned by Denison University.
Carpenter Marty, a transportation engineering firm in Columbus, helped to determine how to remedy the issues with the intersection. It proposed a roundabout as a good fix.
The Licking County Area Transportation Study helped the village obtain a portion of the project’s funding from the Ohio Department of Transportation.
Ellie Owen writes for write 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.