Grant will help cover repair costs for Fox Stop Road

By TAYLOR BROWN

tbrown@yourmvi.com

There is finally a light at the end of the tunnel for Fallowfield Township residents who live along Fox Stop Road. 

For the past two years, those who lived along the road have been forced to use a 6-mile detour as supervisors struggled to find funding for the project. 

Sen. Camera Bartolotta, R-Carroll Township, recently secured a $275,000 grant from the state Department of Community and Economic Development to make necessary repairs to reopen the roadway. 

While supervisors have continued to pave, salt, plow and cut grass along the roadway for the past two years, there has not been enough money in the budget to make repairs.

Supervisors have worked to maintain the road in cost-effective ways, using stones and other methods, but as time went on the damage continued to get worse and it has become more expensive to fix. 

Supervisor Earl Sadler said the problems on the road have been around for decades.

But in 2019, a nearly 18-foot drop on the north end of the road off Old Route 71 and a 40-foot long lateral crack running along the edge of the roadway made the road too much of a safety hazard. 

Geo-Mechanics Inc., an Elizabeth-based company, did a geotechnical study of the road after it was closed, which determined needed repairs will cost six figures.

Two Local Share Account grants the township applied for have been denied two years in a row. 

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