Tylersville road widening ‘critically vital’ to economic success

Busiest sections of roads maintained by the Butler County Engineer’s Office

* - Roadway scheduled to be expanded starting next month

Source: Butler County Engineer’s Office

A busy stretch of Butler County roadway is on the verge of a $2 million expansion aimed at easing traffic woes and increasing safety.

Daily traffic totals show more than 50,000 motorists travel the roadway each day, many of them destined for West Chester Hospital, Voice of America Centre and area restaurants and businesses.

For those who live and work in the area, the changes can’t come fast enough.

“Honestly, I avoid Tylersville,” said Shanee Cicco of Hamilton, who has worked at West Chester Hospital for about three years. “It takes up almost my entire lunch break just to get anywhere around here and back.”

Getting to work means circumventing Tylersville “at all costs,” taking Ohio 129 to Liberty Way and Cox Road, then reversing that route to get home.

Relief is on the way starting next month as a road improvement project will add a third eastbound lane to improve the flow of traffic and reconfigure the clogged and sometimes dangerous intersection of Tylersville Road and Kingsgate Way/Dudley Drive.

Tylersville Road is “critically vital” to the township’s economic success and its ability to retain and attract businesses, according to Trustee George Lang, who described how impeded the road can get.

“If you try driving through there, even on a Saturday morning at 11 o’clock, it’s going to take you 20 minutes to travel a mile,” Lang said. “That’s where the businesses are, especially the retail businesses … plus there’s a lot of neighborhoods that feed into Tylersville, as well.”

The planned improvements include adding a third eastbound through lane from Interstate 75 northbound ramp to Cox Road, according to Matthew Loeffler, traffic engineer with the Butler County Engineer’s Office.

That lane will terminate into the existing right-turn lane for southbound Cox Road, Loeffler said.

Kingsgate Way will be widened to accommodate two southbound receiving lanes, two northbound left-turn lanes and a shared through/right turn lane. Dudley Drive improvements include two northbound receiving lanes, one southbound left-turn lane, one through lane and one right turn lane.

A new mast arm traffic signal will be installed to accommodate the additional lanes. Sidewalks will be constructed on the south side of Tylersville Road along project limits.

“These improvements will provide congestion relief … reducing the potential for rear-end accidents,” Loeffler said. “The additional lanes on Kingsgate Way and Dudley Drive increase side street capacity, allowing more (green light) time for Tylersville Road.”

That’s welcome news to Mohini Duggal, whose daily commute to Thorntons gas station means having to deal with “a whole lot of bumper-to-bumper” congestion.

“Dealing with the traffic here I feel is ridiculous sometimes, especially trying to watch people leave our gas station,” she said. “It’s very difficult because here (is) where it’s the exit to the ramp, so everyone getting off the highway is filing (past) right here.”

But Duggal said it’s mainly out-of-towners in the area for vacation who are surprised by the traffic.

“A lot of people who are from here are used to (thinking) ‘Hey, I’m going down Tylersville, I need an extra couple of minutes because it’s busy,’” she said.

The Tylersville Road project is something that BCEO has been formally working on since 2012, but was “on the radar” for many years prior, according to spokesman Chris Petrocy.

“Obviously the growth in that area over the past few decades has caused an increase in traffic volumes on Tylersville and surrounding roads, so we continually monitor for congestion, traffic flow, accidents, etcetera,” Petrocy said.

Tylersville, which started out as a two-lane road, eventually was expanded to four lanes and turn lanes were added gradually as needed, he said.

West Chester Twp.’s $1.5 million share of the project’s funding came from interest earned on bonds as part of the Liberty Way project agreement between the township and the Butler County Transportation Improvement District, according to Township Adminstrator Judi Boyko.

BCEO’s share of the project is $563,078, Petrocy said.

A second phase to the current expansion is planned to address widening the north side of Tylersville for westbound traffic, but Butler County Engineer Greg Wilkens previously told the Journal-News that acquiring right-of-way for that phase is going to be “a little more difficult.”