{"id":195040,"date":"2025-07-21T21:25:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T02:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=195040"},"modified":"2025-07-22T20:51:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T01:51:14","slug":"odot-shares-information-about-upcoming-safety-projects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2025\/07\/21\/odot-shares-information-about-upcoming-safety-projects\/","title":{"rendered":"ODOT shares info about safety projects"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

SCOTT TRUXELL\/<\/strong>independent editor<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

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.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
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ODOT District 1 Deputy Director Chris Hughes (far right) talks with Van Wert resident Mark Davis, while others look at information provided during Monday’s open house. Scott Truxell\/Van Wert independent<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cWe have a tremendous amount of work coming up in Van Wert County,\u201d Hughe said. \u201cWe\u2019re 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hughes said it\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt takes a long time \u2013 these things take time to go through these studies and secure funding, but we\u2019re at the point now where we\u2019re actually turning some of these concepts into projects and we hope to be able to move forward with these,\u201d Hughes stated. \u201cFeedback has been an ongoing thing and it\u2019s 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 \u2013 (we\u2019ve been) working with county officials and the townships, the city and economic development.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s 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\u2019re moving forward in the right direction,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s fully funded for construction,\u201d Hughes said of the RCUT project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a different process and a different funding source, so we have to go through step-by-step,\u201d Hughes said of those two projects. \u201cIt\u2019s a little bit more difficult by design because we need to get to know exactly what we\u2019d be building, get some really good cost estimates and then go seek funding for those next phases.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hughes said ODOT Is in a 30-day public comment period for those projects and is looking for feedback from the public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While not necessarily the focus of Monday\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-195040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-12 08:14:54","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195040"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195040\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":195112,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195040\/revisions\/195112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}