PIERCE TOWNSHIP, Ohio — A road resurfacing project moving through the intersection of White Oak Road, State Route 125 and Lewis Road will not include the safety upgrades identified in a years-long engineering study, after a bid for state grant funding came up short, Pierce Township said in a social media post.
The intersection sits at the junction of three separate jurisdictions: the Ohio Department of Transportation, which controls SR 125; Clermont County, which maintains White Oak Road; and Pierce Township, which maintains Lewis Road. Any fix requires buy-in from all three, according to the township.
An ODOT-sponsored safety study of the intersection documented 31 crashes there between 2018 and 2023, 15 of which caused injuries, with none fatal, according to the study. Nearly half were angle crashes, and the study found that drivers turning from Lewis Road often had limited visibility of oncoming SR 125 traffic, a factor in several of the unsafe maneuvers it recorded.
The study outlined two tiers of fixes. A short-term option, adding a raised median and resurfacing to limit certain turning movements, was estimated at about $86,000. A more extensive long-term redesign, identified as Alternate 3, would reconfigure the White Oak Road and Lewis Road approaches to restrict turns onto SR 125, at an estimated cost of $1.4 million.
ODOT used the study to pursue state safety grant funding for the long-term redesign, but the application was not selected, according to the township.
Pierce Township said it explored folding the short-term improvements into a White Oak Road resurfacing project already underway, since a paving contractor was mobilized on site. But without funding secured for the long-term fix and without support from all three agencies on the short-term option, the resurfacing will proceed without the safety changes, the township said.
County officials said they remain committed to working with ODOT and the township to pursue future funding for safety improvements at the intersection.
The information contained in this story was obtained from Pierce Township.