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The Ohio Kentucky Indiana Regional Council of Governments recently granted the $8 million request made by Fairfield for a joint infrastructure project with Forest Park.

The money from OKI is tentatively slated to partly fund two of five proposed projects that will help ease the traffic-laden South Gilmore/Winton roads corridor and Interstate 275.

"We're still in the midst of studying it," said Fairfield City Engineer Ben Mann. "We know there are problems out there and we know there are different ways to fix them but we're trying to nail down which ones really give you the most bang for the buck."

The first of the two projects is to widen the northbound lanes of South Gilmore/Winton between Smiley Road in Forest Park and Cincinnati Mills Drive in Fairfield. The OKI grant will pay for about $3.46 million of this project, which will still need another $6.5 million to be split between the two cities, Mann said.

The other project will widen South Gilmore/Winton between Kolb Road in Fairfield and the westbound I-275 ramp in Forest Park. The OKI grant will pay for about $4.43 million of this project, which will still need nearly $10 million to finish, also to be split between Fairfield and Forest Park, Mann said.

Preliminary engineering for the two projects is expected to be finished this fall with final design engineering to be completed by the end of 2009, Mann said. Construction is tentatively slated to begin in 2011.

Mann said the city will try to secure Ohio Department of Transportation funds to help pay for the projects.

The two projects were among 18 projects OKI granted money to under the Service Transportation Program, said OKI spokesman Brian Cunningham. About $58.3 million was granted under the program.

"Obviously the purpose is to help communities and help travel efficiencies and increase safety and these two projects are a perfect example of how transportation can be improved and save lives potentially," Cunningham said.

Cunningham said there is an average of 39,600 vehicles traveling the corridor daily and there are an average of 196 accidents a year. It is projected the improvements will reduce the number of accidents by 147 a year, he said.

Fairfield and Forest Park officials are negotiating a split of $10.4 million local match needed for the $24.5 million project. While the majority of the construction work is within Forest Park, Mann said a lot of the traffic is due to some Fairfield destinations — Cincinnati Financial (3,000 employees), Mercy Hospital Fairfield (1,300 employees) and Cincinnati Mills (1.5 million square feet of retail space).

The remaining three projects, which are not dependant on each other, include widening the westbound ramp from South Gilmore to the interstate to add a southbound lane; eastbound on-ramp from Winton Road to the interstate to accommodate double left turn lanes; and northbound South Gilmore from westbound off ramp to Mack Road to accommodate "drop lanes." Construction is tentatively scheduled for these projects between 2011 and 2016, Mann said.