Work starts on Bowling Green interchange project

BOWLING GREEN — Preliminary work has begun to replace the deck of East Wooster Street’s bridge over I-75 — a project that also will feature roundabout construction at adjoining freeway ramp intersections.

Among Archbold-based Miller Brothers Construction’s initial tasks is installing wooden “false work” between the bridge’s beams to provide a work platform and catch debris when the concrete above those beams is removed.

That task will take a couple of weeks and require nighttime lane closings on I-75, said Rebecca Dangelo, the Ohio Department of Transportation’s district spokesman in Bowling Green.

Map of the I-75/SR 64 roundabout interchange.

The $10,121,554.78 project’s main traffic impacts, however, will be on East Wooster and the interchange ramps.

The start-up work includes removing the median on East Wooster, which is State Rt. 64 west of I-75 and State Rt. 105 to the east. The contractor also will begin construction of new Bowling Green water and sewer mains that will bypass the bridge to the north — work covered by city funding in the project’s budget.

After Labor Day, Ms. Dangelo said, work will be focused on rebuilding East Wooster’s westbound side across and near the bridge, including building a pedestrian path on the street’s north edge between Alumni Drive and Dunbridge Road.

That stage will reduce traffic to one lane each way through the area, she said. Eastbound traffic already is reduced to a single lane, with two westbound lanes maintained.

This fall’s construction will require a 14-day closing of the southbound I-75 exit to East Wooster.

Dates for that closing remain to be determined.

When the roundabouts are built next year, East Wooster will be permanently made one lane each way across the bridge, but the roundabouts will end the need for westbound left-turn lanes at the freeway ramps.

The eastbound right lane approaching I-75 will become a dedicated right-turn lane onto the freeway’s southbound entrance, while the southbound exit will have a bypass lane that will form the westbound right lane west of the freeway.

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