BLAINE — The Blaine Bridge Committee held an open forum Friday morning.

The meeting was originally intended to be a way to bridge the gap between Blaine residents and the Ohio Department of Transportation over the closure of the historic Blaine Hill Bridge. However, ODOT representatives were unable to attend the meeting, which left a sour taste in the residents’ mouths.

In July, ODOT restricted traffic on the Blaine Hill Bridge after the span showed structural issues that caused concern. Originally, ODOT only closed the westbound lanes of the span on U.S. 40 “out of an abundance of caution” while working to address structural deficiencies.

Shortly after the bridge was reduced to one lane, the Ohio State Highway Patrol and ODOT received multiple reports of drivers either not understanding or not obeying the posted signs and traveling west in the open eastbound lanes. According to ODOT, “that behavior led to several close calls that could have caused life-threatening traffic collisions.”

Following those close calls, ODOT made the controversial decision to fully close the bridge in August.

Pease Township Trustee and Blaine Bridge Committee member Mike Bianconi led the meeting Friday. He began by saying that he was disappointed that none of the three ODOT representatives who were scheduled to be at the meeting were able to attend.

“I will say I am extremely disappointed that there are no representatives from ODOT in attendance,” he said. “Our invitation to this meeting was initially accepted. ODOT informed us that they will have a strong presence and a presentation to share. As we can see, that did not happen.”

Bianconi added that on Tuesday, ODOT informed the committee that no representatives would be present at the meeting due to a pre-existing scheduling conflict.

Nina Lenz, co-owner of Vino di Piccin Winery in Lansing, said that when the bridge was closed, she decided to start the committee and asked her brother-in-law Bianconi how she should go about doing so. Bianconi, who also is a former Belmont County commissioner, suggested that she start a petition seeking to have ODOT reopen one lane of the bridge, which she did. Lenz was able to obtain 1,200 signatures for her petition.

“We recognize that we are Appalachia and Appalachians are hard-working, tax-paying citizens of Ohio,” Lenz said. “We also recognize that funds are limited to this area. This is a National Road (bridge) that needs to be demolished and rebuilt as soon as possible.”

Originally, the committee planned to present the petition to ODOT in hopes it would reopen one lane of the bridge. But after ODOT deemed the bridge to be unsafe for any travel, the committee decided to try and get the timeline for the reconstruction of the bridge to be moved up.

ODOT originally anticipated construction to repair and replace the bridge to begin by 2027, but the work has since been moved up to 2026.

Ohio state Rep. Ron Ferguson, R-Wintersville, attended the meeting and said his goal is to get ODOT to move the start date up to 2025.

“I don’t find it acceptable. I’ve had my dealings with ODOT, and it’s been difficult,” Ferguson said.

He shared a story of his dealings with ODOT during his first term in office. According to Ferguson, there was a piece of property in Jefferson County owned by ODOT where Eastern Hellbender salamanders had been found. The Jefferson County Soil and Water Conservation District had wanted to buy the property from the state to protect the salamanders, but ODOT didn’t want to sell the property even though it had no plans for the site.

“Long story short, we fought it and it was the first time in over 10 years that the governor deeded a piece of property to a local agency like that,” Ferguson said. “The transportation budget gets done every two years. Obviously, it pays for all our roads and our bridges and everything else in the whole state of Ohio. It has to be passed by March 31 of this year. So, ODOT will have to come in before the legislature in order to answer a whole host of questions on the transportation budget.

“So whatever you want me to ask them, it is very public, and you go to ohiochannel.org to watch this,” he continued. “We will definitely get your answers for you to that point. So I’m sorry that people aren’t here to say it to you today in this room, but we do have an avenue to force, force their hand.”

Although she was not present at the meeting, ODOT District 11 spokeswoman Lauren Borell said later by phone that the Blaine Hill Bridge project is a major priority for ODOT.

“ODOT provided updated information to community leaders prior to the meeting with the expectation that they would share the information with the attendees,” Borell said.

In response to Ferguson saying that he would like to try to get ODOT to move up the start date of the project to 2025, Borell said: “ODOT is doing everything within our power while following our processes to accelerate any part of the project possible, including the planning phases of the project and construction.”

“Already within the last couple of months we are already a year ahead of schedule,” she added. “Originally we were saying that construction would begin in 2027; however, we are now beginning in 2026.”

She added that the project is a priority to her and the entire department and said that she and her team spend several hours each day working toward the end goal of finishing the project.

Once the bridge closed in August, it caused residents of Blaine, Wolfhurst, Barton and Bridgeport a major inconvenience. Many of the residents used National Road to travel back and forth to St. Clairsville and points further west. Nearby businesses have also reported that the closure has impacted their bottom lines.

Mary Jo Heaton is the owner of Mary Jo’s Wash and Wags, which is a dog grooming business located in Blaine. She said that since the bridge closed, her business has taken a substantial hit.

“I only did an estimate from September, October, November and December, and from the year before I have lost over $11,000 of business from the year before,” Heaton said. “I take care of my special needs son and my disabled husband, so in four months $11,000 is a big deal to me.”

She added that she believes her customers have elected not to schedule dog grooming appointments because they would have to travel an extra 15 minutes to drop their dog off for two hours just to come back and add an extra 15 minutes to their travel time.

Traffic headed to the Blaine and Lansing areas now must travel on Interstate 70 to Howard Street in Bridgeport and use U.S. 40 west to reach the community.

“At what point do we say this is not a feasible thing in Ohio? A cement bridge that goes downhill with Ohio winters, it’s time to get rid of it and build something that is going to be more stable for Ohio winters,” Heaton said.

Following Heaton’s remarks, Wolfhurst Volunteer Fire Department Chief Matthew Otto said he believes that although the bridge closure is inconvenient, it is also a safety issue.

“When the bridge got closed, a whole section of Pease Township got cut off from us,” Otto said. “The first thing we had to do is we had to make mutual aid arrangements getting other departments to cover our own areas because we can’t get there in a timely fashion.”