These projects could cost between $1.4 billion and $1.9 billion.
DELAWARE, Ohio — On one of the busiest days of the year, many drivers take to U.S. Route 23 to reach their vacation destinations, a road known for its traffic jams and stoplights.
Plans are in place to make travel on this route easier for the upcoming holidays.
ODOT is proposing to remove 32 of 39 traffic lights from Worthington to Waldo, widen lanes and add overpasses and interchanges.
AAA expects this Fourth of July to break travel records with more than 70 million people planning vacations and 60 million people expected to drive to their destinations.
Blair Lachman, Ray Gaiser and their sons stopped for lunch on Route 23 Thursday afternoon as they drove from Michigan to North Carolina for a baseball tournament.
“This stretch feels like a highway, but without any real lights, so it’s definitely slower,” Gaiser said.
Lachman was pleased to learn of plans to reduce traffic lights on the road.
“There’s a lot of stopping and going, and when you’re traveling for 11 hours, the fewer stops you have to make, the better,” he said.
For these families, it was their first time traveling the route, but the headaches along Highway 23 are all too familiar to locals like Dave Jeffries.
“There’s a lot of traffic all the time,” he said. “The north end of the city is very busy these days.”
He often takes this route from Powell to Delaware and Alum Creek, but he’s not sure reducing traffic lights is a good idea.
“I think it’s probably going to increase the number of accidents given the number of businesses and stops along the route. I could see it further down the road, but maybe not in this section,” he said.
ODOT expects this to do the opposite. The department projects the changes will cut travel times in half and reduce the number of crashes by up to 250 per year.
The project is still in the approval process, so it is uncertain whether the updates will be effective by July 4.
It could cost between $1.4 billion and $1.9 billion.
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