STRONGSVILLE, Ohio — Some neighbors on the border of Strongsville and Brunswick say they feel like they're living in limbo two months after the state transportation budget included language and funding for a new highway interchange between the two Northeast Ohio cities.
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Rumors about creating an access point to I-71 were already swirling on Boston Road when Tom and Rose Helderman moved into their home in 1999. Until recently, the Strongsville couple hadn't invested much thought in the idea of an interchange. They spent several decades investing in their house on an access road near the Boston Road overpass.
"You take pride in what it is that you have, and you treat it as if it is an investment for life," Tom Helderman said.
The two-lane road separates Strongsville in Cuyahoga County from its southern neighbor Brunswick in Medina County. Across the street on nearby Carpenter Road, Ed and Patti Radzyminski moved into a ranch-style home several months after the Heldermans.
"We do a fair amount of entertaining. We like to open our home to people," said Ed Radzyminski, pointing out a recently remodeled kitchen and a large, tree-lined backyard designed to host family and neighborhood gatherings.
Both couples expected to stay in their homes as long as their health and lifestyles permitted. But since late March, they've grown increasingly anxious about whether a proposed interchange could uproot their way of life.
"If they really wanted a Boston Road interchange, they should have done it years ago when there wasn't so much development," Rose Helderman said.
Ed Radzyminski added, "We're scared. Where are we going to go? What's going to happen to us?"
An additional highway access point between Strongsville and Brunswick has been fiercely debated for years. Proponents, many of whom live and work in the northern city, believe adding an interchange would promote safety and alleviate traffic on Strongsville's Route 82. Others, mainly in Brunswick, think on and off-ramps would displace neighbors and turn the residential area into a commercial corridor.
In late March, State Representative Tom Patton (R-Strongsville), the chair of the House Finance Subcommittee on Transportation, added language to the state transportation budget to include funding for such a project. It requires ODOT to ensure there is limited access on and off ramps every 4.5 miles on the interstate between cities with more than 35,000 people when at least one of the cities is in a county with more than 1 million people.
At the time, Patton told News 5 the project would be a poster child for traffic safety.
"The intersection of Route 82 and Howe Road is in most years the highest or no better than the second highest accident area in the region," Patton said on March 30. "There's times when the 82 exit ramp will back up all the way to the Turnpike ramp, which is almost a full mile."
Since the bill's passage, neighbors near the presumed interchange location tell News 5 they've been unnerved.
"We're going to lose our house that we planned on having until we could no longer upkeep it," said Sherri Hamm, another Boston Road resident who lives on the Strongsville side of the street.
As of late May, there have been no blueprints officially published with specifics about where an interchange could be built and how long the project could take. In the fall of 2022, the city of Strongsville hired an engineering firm to conduct a traffic and feasibility study to identify the need for an interchange and develop possible design options.
Strongsville leaders were not available for comment on this story, but City Council President Jim Carbone previously told News 5 the city would collect feedback from both communities when the proper studies are completed. The assurances have done little to calm the nerves of neighbors closest to I-71.
"So now we're living in limbo," said Rose Helderman.
Her husband added, "If we need a new roof, what do we do? Do we go ahead and replace that roof, incur the costs and then two years down the road, they demo it?"
When Gov. Mike DeWine signed the transportation budget into law in March, he said local, state and federal regulations would likely push any project's start time until 2030 at the earliest. In the meantime, neighbors said many unanswered questions are causing significant stress.
"It's caused a lot of angst and sleepless nights," Radzyminski said. "What's going to happen to us? Where are we going to go? How would we fund this?"
Ohio's new Transportation Budget goes into effect on July 1, 2023.
