COLUMBUS, Ohio – In the last decade, the state has sent billions of dollars to fund critical infrastructure projects in communities across the state using a pool of money given to them by voters.
Over half a billion dollars from the State Capital Improvement Program flowed to cities, villages and townships in Northeast Ohio, funding nearly 900 projects since 2017 that range from storm sewer replacements and emergency bridge rehabilitations to restabilizing roads and updating wastewater treatment plants, according to data from the Ohio Public Works Commission.
The program, which began in 1987, is fueled by bonds that the state sells. The program must be reapproved by voters every 10 years to fund the next decade of projects. In May, voters will again be asked to continue the program.
The data that cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer reviewed covered the program’s previous funding cycle, from 2017 through 2025.
Nearly every community in the eight-county region received funding for infrastructure projects in that time, the data showed.
Linda Bailiff, the commission’s executive director, said that while every project the program supports is critical, the money given to smaller municipalities often has a meaningful impact.
“You could argue that it’s even more critical for a township road to be paved, because they’re far less likely to get funding for the road while they have residents in the area who are struggling with potholes and deteriorated pavement,” Bailiff said.
Lorain County Assistant Engineer Robert Klaiber said the state money can be used to leverage additional funding — from the federal government or other sources — for major local projects, like replacing the water main on North Ridge Road in Lorain.
But many smaller projects – like rebuilding a bridge in Columbia Township that was in danger of collapse last year — may not qualify for federal funding at all.
“For a lot of your local streets and projects, OPWC is the only source of outside funding,” Klaiber said. “We have infrastructure we have to maintain, and it’s always a struggle looking for funding.”
Bridges in Cuyahoga County
The region’s most populous county received the most money from the program, with more than $241 million going to help fund 172 projects across Cuyahoga County.
The county is also home to the project that received the most state money of any project in Ohio since 2017: replacing three deteriorating bridges on Pleasant Valley Road in Independence and Valley View.
The Cuyahoga County Department of Public Works got about $14 million in federal grants for the project, but that still left them on the hook for $15 million.
“Projects of this size, we just cannot do ourselves,” Nichole English, the department’s director of planning and programming, said. “We just don’t have resources.”
OPWC stepped in and awarded the county just over $9.5 million in grants and loans. Construction began earlier this year and is slated to wrap in 2026.
The commission also gave the county more than $6.2 million for a years-long project to widen Sprague Road in Parma, Strongsville, Middleburg Heights and North Royalton.
The Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority was the beneficiary of more than $2 million in grants to rehab the bridge that spans the rapid station at East 116th Street and Shaker Boulevard, near the former St. Luke’s Hospital in Cleveland.
In addition to funding large projects, the county depends on OPWC funding for projects in small and cash-strapped municipalities who may not have the means to pay for pivotal projects, according to English.
“As far as infrastructure funding, this is a really big one for the region that helps a lot of communities out,” English said.
White House Summit
The commission sent $100 million to 127 projects in Summit County, including one that earned the city of Akron a shoutout from President Joe Biden last month.
The city combined a $1 million commission grant with $9 million it received from Biden’s COVID-era American Rescue Plan Act to begin replacing the last 1,800 lead pipes left in the city.
When the Biden administration announced in October a plan to rid the nation of lead pipes within a decade, a White House press release noted how Akron was on pace to replace the last if its lead pipes by 2027.
While that was the only project to receive a tip of the presidential cap, another in Summit County received the second-most OPWC funding of any in the state, behind only the Pleasant Valley Road bridges replacement: the complete rehabilitation of Romig Road between Interstate 76 and Wadsworth Road.
The project received $9.1 million from OPWC to replace the thoroughfare so it can handle heavy truck traffic after Amazon opened a fulfillment center at the former Rolling Acres Mall site. The grant covered nearly all of the $11 million price tag.
“The funding was critical to the inception and ultimately, execution of the project,” Akron’s Service Director Chris Ludle said in an email. “It’s highly likely the project would not have happened without this funding.”
A bigger Abbe Road
When the Capel Road bridge in Columbia Township needed to be replaced last year, the Lorain County Engineer’s Office couldn’t seek money from the federal government to help pay for the $200,000 project, Klaiber said. That’s because the structure that crossed Robson Ditch was shorter than 10 feet long, so the U.S. Department of Transportation didn’t consider it to be a bridge.
The OPWC gave the county a grant of about $148,000, and the engineer’s office covered the roughly $52,000 difference with money raised by a tax on gasoline.
“OPWC is the only available funding for a project like that,” Klaiber said.
The grant was among 193 that OPWC awarded to projects in Lorain County, totaling over $58 million.
The commission gave more than $712,000 to Sheffield Village, including $669,000 in grants, to widen a busy stretch of Abbe Road from Lorain County Community College to 400 feet north of Detroit Avenue, and install a left-turn lane with a new traffic light. In addition to the college, the area includes multiple shopping centers and chain restaurants.
Bricks, heaters, storm drains in smaller towns
The remaining Northeast Ohio counties – Ashtabula, Geauga, Lake, Medina and Portage – received a combined $135 million in funding from the OPWC since 2017.
In Medina, a $478,000 OPWC grant covered more than one-third of a 2018 project to replace the brick section of South Broadway Street, one of two brick streets left in the city.
The bricks had last been replaced in 1917.
The city of Wadsworth snagged $1.2 million in grants and loans to help cover the engineering costs of widening High Street after the Ohio Department of Transportation raised concerns about safety for drivers along the corridor.
Those were two of 77 Medina County projects that received a combined $27 million from OPWC.
Among the 119 projects in Lake County that received over $40 million in capital funding was the emergency demolition and replacement of the Callow Road Bridge in Leroy Township. The Lake County Engineer’s Office closed the bridge in the spring of 2021 after it noticed that the bank and wingwalls were deteriorating.
OPWC gave the office $450,000 — about half of the total project cost.
In Willoughby, the commission gave just over $1 million to help the city replace a storm sewer that ran from Grove Avenue into the Nason Basin to alleviate flooding that plagued residents there for several years, the News-Herald reported.
The OPWC gave the city of Kent in Portage County $2.2 million in grants and loans to help pay for two new heat exchangers at its water reclamation facility.
In total, 67 projects in Portage County got just over $27 million in OPWC grants and loans.
In Geauga County, the city of Chardon got $1.3 million, including $900,000 in loans to reconstruct Chardon Avenue and Canfield Drive.
That was the largest sum among 48 projects in the county that got a combined $18.1 million in funding.