City May Revisit I-71 Interchange at Boston Road

A plan for a new I-71 interchange at Boston Road -- an on-again, off-again idea that's been bandied around for more than two decades -- should be considered again, a Strongsville official says.

Council President Mike Daymut suggested setting up a meeting with Brunswick leaders to revive a local push for the interchange.

"I want to resurrect those meetings with Brunswick," Daymut said.

He made the suggestion at a meeting to discuss traffic tie-ups in Strongsville last week.

Royalton Road is , with 38 percent of all crashes reported in the city last year taking place on that road -- most near I-71, according to police department figures.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the two cities made a major push to get an interchange built on Boston Road, going as far as drawing up plans while lobbying for state and federal money to build it.

Daymut said neither city would have to contribute toward the construction.

City Engineer Ken Mikula said local officials have talked about the idea with the Ohio Department of Transportation and Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency and got a lukewarm response.

"We pretty much got the message," Mikula said. "They weren't real supportive of funding an interchange there."

But Daymut said Strongsville and Brunswick already have an agreement to widen Boston Road in 2016, which is the first step toward getting a long-awaited interchange built there. 

"We should at least put it on the back burner again," he said.