I-475 CONSTRUCTION

Ramp work to start near Franklin Park exits

ODOT aims to prevent holiday season backups

7/29/2013
BY DAVID PATCH
BLADE STAFF WRITER
Workers with the Ohio Department of Transportation pave the entrance ramp to I-475 westbound off Secor Road in West Toledo last month. The Ohio Department of Transportation’s $1.3 million solution to long autumnal backups on I-475 at the exits closest to Westfield Franklin Park starts today.
Workers with the Ohio Department of Transportation pave the entrance ramp to I-475 westbound off Secor Road in West Toledo last month. The Ohio Department of Transportation’s $1.3 million solution to long autumnal backups on I-475 at the exits closest to Westfield Franklin Park starts today.

The Ohio Department of Transportation’s $1.3 million solution to long autumnal backups on I-475 at the exits closest to Westfield Franklin Park starts today.

Crews from Toledo-based Geddis Paving will set up a barrier wall this week to protect the work zone where they will widen the eastbound Corey Road exit ramp, whose traffic often spills out onto the freeway during the peak holiday shopping season.

The set-up will require nighttime right-lane closings on eastbound I-475 near the Corey exit this week, and a width restriction on the ramp late today into Tuesday morning.

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During the next three months, Geddis and subcontractors also will add lanes on Corey and Whiteford roads at their intersection with Sylvania Avenue to increase the amount of traffic that gets through on each cycle of the traffic signal there; install a stoplight at the Corey exit’s top, and extend the deceleration lane for the westbound I-475 exit to Talmadge Road.

The Corey and Talmadge exits, about a mile apart, bear the brunt of mall traffic. Each is a half-interchange, with Corey having just an eastbound exit and a westbound entrance, and Talmadge the opposite.

The Corey exit currently has a stop sign at its end, and long backups form during peak periods when motorists wait to turn left onto Corey. The Talmadge exit fans out into three lanes before a traffic light, but during rush hours it too backs up out onto the freeway. The project, funded by ODOT’s statewide safety program, is scheduled for completion by early November.

When he announced the project just before Christmas last year, Todd Audet, ODOT’s district deputy director in Bowling Green, said the department’s long-term solution for the exit-ramp intersection on Corey is a roundabout, but that can’t be done without widening the Corey bridge over I-475.

“We could still do the roundabout in the future,” he said.

Besides the Corey/​Talmadge work, ODOT contractors this week will start work on repaving Maumee-Western Road (U.S. 20A) between Ford Street in Maumee and the State Rt. 2 (Airport Highway) intersection in Swanton Township.

And on I-475/​U.S. 23, where preparations began two weeks ago for overhauling and widening twin bridges over the Ohio Turnpike, nighttime lane closings start today, along with two overnight closings of the Salisbury Road/​Dussel Drive entrances to the northbound lanes.

Contact David Patch at: dpatch@theblade.com or 419-724-6094.