FINDLAY, OH (WLIO) - Work will begin this week on a $30 million project to make a Findlay interchange safer. The Ohio Department of Transportation District 1 will start the initial work at County Road 99 and I-75 on June 3rd.
TRAFFIC IMPACTS
- I-75 southbound entrance ramp will close on June 3 for approximately three days.
- Detour: I-75 north to SR 18 to I-75 south (see map)
- I-75, in both directions, the left lane will close June 3 for bridge pier construction. Traffic will use the middle and right lanes.
- Main Street at CR 99, the north leg of the intersection, will close on Monday, June 10, for approximately five days.
- Detour: CR 99 to CR 18 to CR 215, back to Main St. (see map)
- I-75 northbound exit ramp will close on June 17 for approximately three days.
- Detour: I-75 north to SR 613 to I-75 south, back to CR 99.
Local and state officials are seeing more growth in that area, and the current interchange was not built to handle a high amount of traffic. So, ODOT will be building a diverging diamond interchange to make getting on and off I-75 safer.
“That’s why the diverging diamond works so well; it really pumps a lot of traffic through quickly by crossing traffic over to the opposite side. And what that does is that allows for a continuous left turn. So, if you think about turning at a signal or a stop sign, a right on red is much easier than a left turn because you are not crossing over traffic. So, with a diverging diamond shifting traffic to the opposite side, essentially you have a left-on-red scenario,” says Rob White, Capital Programs Administrator for ODOT District 1.
The project is expected to take around two and a half years to complete.
