ODOT shares info about safety projects

SCOTT TRUXELL/independent editor

Plans to improve safety along three heavily traveled highway corridors in Van Wert County were the focus of a public meeting held Monday evening.

During the open house-style meeting held at Vantage Career Center, officials with the Ohio Department of Transportation District 1 Office answered questions and listened to feedback from a steady stream of residents. In addition, ODOT District 1 Deputy Director Chris Hughes made brief remarks.

“We have a tremendous amount of work coming up in Van Wert County,” Hughe said. “We’re here to talk about three projects in detail today but beyond that we have several others going on. We have a lot of traffic issues and safety issues going on in the county and these are attempts to solve those.”

Hughes said it’s been an ongoing process which included a feasiblity study along the entire U.S. 30 corridor in Van Wert County. It included all of the intersections and interchanges along the way.

“It takes a long time – these things take time to go through these studies and secure funding, but we’re at the point now where we’re actually turning some of these concepts into projects and we hope to be able to move forward with these,” Hughes stated. “Feedback has been an ongoing thing and it’s been no secret that we have big plans for U.S. 30 or these other locations around Van Wert County. Local officials have been great – (we’ve been) working with county officials and the townships, the city and economic development.”

“It’s just been a real strong partnership that we have here in Van Wert County and that helps to move these things forward and make sure we’re moving forward in the right direction,” he added.

One of the upcoming projects calls for converting the intersection of U.S. 30 and John Brown Rd. to a restricted crossing U-turn (RCUT), similar to one that was installed at U.S. 30 and Thayer Rd. in the Lima area. Construction is scheduled to begin next summer or fall and will cost approximately $3 million.

“That’s fully funded for construction,” Hughes said of the RCUT project.

Two other projects are slated for 2030. One is designed to improve the connection at U.S. 30/U.S. 224 with a new interchange and add a connection with Liberty Union Rd., while the other calls for improve the U.S. 127 (Washington St.) corridor between U.S. 30 and Bonnewitz Ave. in Van Wert.

“It’s a different process and a different funding source, so we have to go through step-by-step,” Hughes said of those two projects. “It’s a little bit more difficult by design because we need to get to know exactly what we’d be building, get some really good cost estimates and then go seek funding for those next phases.”

Hughes said ODOT Is in a 30-day public comment period for those projects and is looking for feedback from the public.

While not necessarily the focus of Monday’s open house, Hughes noted three new roundabouts are also scheduled for construction near Van Wert. The first will be built at the intersection of U.S. 224 and Lincoln Highway. The second one is slated for Ohio 118 and Wren-Landeck Rd., and the third is set for U.S. 224 and Van Wert-Decatur Rd. in 2029.