CLEVELAND — Summit County has received millions of dollars in federal funding to design and build a new bridge between the cities of Akron and Cuyahoga Falls, U.S. Rep. Emilia Sykes announced Friday.
Rep. Sykes, a Democrat representing Ohio's 13th district, presented ceremonial checks totaling $9,116,279 to Summit County Engineer Alan Brubaker and County Executive Ilene Shapiro on Friday morning.
“I am proud to deliver over $9.1 million to improve the High Level Bridge, a key infrastructure asset in Ohio’s 13th Congressional District," Rep. Sykes said in a media release. "Thousands of residents rely on this bridge each day to get to work, school, and maintain the connection between Summit County’s largest cities — Akron and Cuyahoga Falls.”
The aging High Level Bridge opened in 1949 and is already set to be decommissioned.
“This funding for the planning and design of the High Level Bridge Replacement Project closes a critical funding gap for this infrastructure project in Summit County. The High Level Bridge connects communities and businesses in Summit County’s two biggest cities and it is essential that this connection remains," Brubaker said. "We are so grateful to Congresswoman Sykes and Senator [Sherrod] Brown for championing this project through the legislative process. Local governments simply do not have the money for such large bridge projects and we would not have been able to begin the replacement process without the help from our federal partners."
The $9.1 million consists of two separate allocations of federal funds: $5 million comes from the federal government's Local Major Bridge Program as announced in February. A $4.1 million contribution, first announced in March, comes from a Community Project Funding pool as part of Congress's 2024 federal spending bill.
"The federal funding [Rep. Sykes] secured for us will support critical projects that position Summit County and its 540,000 residents for a bright future," Shapiro said.
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