Construction began Monday, June 16, at the intersection of Powdermill Rd. and Summit Rd. to create Portage County’s first roundabout.

County Engineer Michael Marozzi said, “Building the roundabout is solving a safety concern.” This intersection is one of the city’s most dangerous.

“The back-ups will be eliminated and so will almost all of the accidents,” Marozzi said.

The county decided to install a roundabout three years ago after doing a safety study and the warrants for a traffic signal installation were not met, Marozzi explained.

This roundabout will only be one lane throughout. 

For now, there will be two detours – one for Summit and one for Powdermill. The Summit Road detour will take SR 261 – SR 59 – Lakewood Road while the Powdermill Road detour will take Meloy – Sandy Lake Road – Lakewood Road. 

The County Engineers Association of Ohio “approved a $681,000 federal highway safety grant to build the roundabout,” according to the Portage County Engineer 2012 annual report. 

The construction is expected to be August 22, 2014.

Contact Taylor Williams at [email protected].