State, County &

Township Roads

Director of Public Services Explains Road Clearing

The responsibility for maintaining public roadways in Green Township is charged to three different agencies: Green Township, the Hamilton County Engineer, and the state of Ohio (ODOT). Maintenance responsibilities include various aspects of street repairs and snow removal.

Green Township is charged with maintaining what can be best described as residential streets. There are 535 township streets we are charged with maintaining totaling more than 111.94 miles. As a general rule, if a street has double yellow centerline painted on it, it is not a township maintained street. There are a handful of exceptions to this rule, but for the most part this holds true.

The majority of the streets that are not maintained by Green Township are maintained by the county engineer. The county engineer’s office is charged with maintaining 105.49 miles of roadway in Green Township.

Frequently during snowstorms, township officials hear complaints from residents concerning the condition of streets that are not the maintenance responsibility of the township. Many of these callers express their opinion that Green Township should be performing snow removal on these roads regardless of the fact they are not our responsibility to maintain. The fact is Ohio law does not give Green Township the authority to maintain these streets.

In addition, Green Township does not have the capability from an equipment and manpower standpoint to take on these additional duties. Snow removal costs would more than double with the need to double our fleet of snow removal vehicles, drivers to operate the equipment, and the salt that would need to be distributed. This doubling of costs could not be funded without additional tax revenues being generated such as from an additional street levy.

In an effort to aid our residents in understanding what streets Green Township is charged with maintaining a list of all public streets in Green Township has been added to the Department of Public Services Web page of Green Township’s web site. This listing provides a roster of all public streets in Green Township and the public agency charged with maintaining them. Phone numbers and other contact information are also provided.

As director of Public Services for Green Township I wish to extend my thanks to all of the department’s employees for their efforts in clearing our streets during snowstorms. I also wish to thank the Green Township trustees for their commitment to continue fully funding our snow removal operations despite the fact that the cost for road salt increased so significantly. Finally, I wish to thank the many residents who called to express their appreciation for a job well done by public services drivers on township maintained streets.

Joe Lambing is the Director of Public Services for Green Township.