For the second straight year, business has been down at the El Matador restaurant on Airport Highway as crews widen and reconstruct the busy road.
“It's been real slow all summer, just like last summer,” said Shelly Pfitzer, an assistant manager. “People just don't want to deal with the traffic, and on the freeway, not knowing if the ramps are going to be open.”
Relief is on the way. Nearly 17 months since Miller Brothers Construction of Archbold began its work, the $9.16 million State Rt. 2 project is nearly finished, Joe Rutherford, an Ohio Department of Transportation spokesman, said yesterday.
It's not getting wrapped up quite as fast as had been hoped for two months ago, Mr. Rutherford said, because of rain and late deliveries from a firm supplying steel masts and arms for traffic signals. But by mid-October, he said, lane reopenings should begin, and everything will be finished by the deadline ODOT has promised.
“Come Nov. 11, we'll be out of there completely - no off-road work, no cleanup, nothing,” Mr. Rutherford said.
Except for a four-month hiatus during last year's holiday shopping season and winter working conditions that followed, Airport has had just one lane in each direction from I-475/U.S. 23 to Holloway Road. With the eastern part of that stretch normally having the heaviest traffic of any surface road in Lucas County, congestion has been an almost constant nuisance.
The project has included widening Airport from four lanes to six, plus turn lanes; replacing the decks on the bridge over I-475/U.S. 23 and replacing a span over Swan Creek; realigning a busy ramp at the freeway interchange, and building a permanent concrete median.
Paving is completed on the westbound lanes, and after a two-day delay from Monday's rain, striping and reflector installation began yesterday, Mr. Rutherford said. By tomorrow, westbound traffic should be back on its side of the road, though still just a single lane till new stoplights are installed.
“This is probably the most complex part of the project, right now,” Mr. Rutherford said. “We have to maintain traffic while putting up new signals.”
The folks at El Matador, and other businesses along Airport Highway's south side, have one more headache to deal with: final paving of the eastbound lanes, which is scheduled to start Monday.
As the paving crews pass various driveways, access will be blocked for up to an hour while the asphalt mix sets and cools, Mr. Rutherford said. For the same reason, Perrysburg-Holland Road will be closed at Airport for up to an hour at a time still to be determined, he said. Police have been hired to help direct traffic during the work.
Ms. Pfitzer said the end of construction is eagerly anticipated at the restaurant.
“We're still here,” she said. “Once it's done, I'm sure the business will be back.”
First Published September 25, 2003, 12:11 p.m.
