YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Eastgate Regional Council of Governments will receive $979,200 to study the removal of the Madison Avenue Expressway.
The funding is part of $544.6 million in grants through the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Reconnecting Communities Pilot Program. The funding will support 81 projects in 31 states.
The Reconnecting Communities grants are designed to reestablish routes between communities in urban, rural and tribal areas that were cut off by transportation infrastructure decades ago, leaving entire neighborhoods without easy access to opportunities, employment and key resources such as schools, medical offices and places of worship.
“Construction of the Madison Avenue Expressway in the 1960s split the original neighborhood in half and severed community connectivity by constructing a trenched limited access freeway that created an imposing physical barrier, especially for pedestrians,” Eastgate’s website states. “Freeway construction led the project area to decline almost immediately as a larger number of homes were demolished to make way for the new expressway and many residents moved to outlying suburbs.”
The website also states: “Current community members would benefit from removal of a major barrier to the Downtown Youngstown Innovation District including Youngstown State University and Mercy Health’s St. Elizabeth Hospital. Neighborhood residents would also enjoy increased greenspace and reductions in freeway noise as a result of the proposed freeway to boulevard conversion.”