$5.5M project will build noise walls along I-475

A USPS vehicle is parked in front of a home on Imperial Drive, left, a chain link fence across from westbound I-475. The construction of noise walls is scheduled to begin this week.

The Blade/Jetta Fraser
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A USPS vehicle is parked in front of a home on Imperial Drive, left, a chain link fence across from westbound I-475. The construction of noise walls is scheduled to begin this week.

When Jan Dailey chose her Surrey Road home 14 years ago, she was so pleased with the house and its grounds that she overlooked another of the property’s attributes: I-475 perhaps 50 feet from its master bedroom.

“We call it the semi lullaby,” Ms. Dailey said Tuesday, referring to the big trucks’ roar as they rumble by.

A bit of relief from the noise — though not, Ms. Dailey concedes, from vibration that freeway traffic also causes — is on the way with construction of noise walls along that part of I-475.

Massana Construction of Tyrone, Ga., is to begin work today on a $5.5 million Ohio Department of Transportation contract to build noise walls on both sides between Corey and Talmadge roads, and along the freeway’s south side between Talmadge and Woodley roads.

Walls are planned for only the south, or eastbound, side east of Talmadge because most real estate on the north side there is commercial, and more than half the homeowners in the one residential section opposed such a wall when polled, ODOT spokesman Theresa Pollick said.

Ms. Dailey said she had no such reluctance when state officials first contacted homeowners in her neighborhood more than two years ago. “When I found out they were going to do it, I was delighted,” she said. “I hope it does what it’s supposed to do.”

A few houses away on Imperial Drive, Marge Appling said she has gotten used to the traffic during her more than 30 years living near I-475, and sometimes even likes to watch the cars and trucks go by.

“I’m probably not going to like it while I’m still here,” she said, but the noise wall will probably boost her home’s resale value, “because it is very noisy, especially the trucks.”

On the freeway’s opposite side, along Springbrook Drive, Norma McCoy said the wall’s construction should bring an end to cracks in her sunroom windows where stones kicked up by I-475 traffic have struck.

Mrs. McCoy’s outdoor patio will be more pleasant to use, and she said she won’t even miss the trees along the freeway edge that will be cut down to put in the noise wall, because there won’t be any more leaves needing to be raked.

Those trees’ removal will be among Massana’s first tasks, Ms. Pollick said. Between now and year’s end, she said, the contractor will clear trees, level the ground where the walls will go, and drill foundation holes.

Posts and wall panels will be erected and installed as soon in 2015 as weather allows, the ODOT spokesman said.

The walls’ freeway sides will match the appearance of walls erected within the past few years along I-475 near the new ProMedica Parkway interchange.

On the residential sides, they’ll have slightly different patterns and be tan, except for the section along Imperial Drive, which will be grey.

Most of the wall work will be done with only shoulder closings on I-475, but some nighttime lane closings will occur as work progresses, according to ODOT.

Contact David Patch at: dpatch@theblade.com or 419-724-6094.