DELAWARE, Ohio — Plans are in place that could ease travel on U.S. Route 23 in central Ohio for thousands of commuters.
ODOT is proposing to eliminate 32 of the 39 traffic lights from Worthington to Waldo, widening lanes and adding overpasses and interchanges.
AAA expected this Fourth of July to break travel records with more than 70 million people making holiday plans, and 60 million people expected to drive to their destinations.
Blair Lachman, Ray Gaiser and their sons stopped for a lunch break on Route 23 on Thursday afternoon as they made their way from Michigan to North Carolina for a baseball tournament.
“This stretch right here feels like you are on an expressway but not really with all the lights, so it has definitely been slower,” Gaiser said.
Lachman was pleased to learn of plans to reduce traffic lights on the road.
“It is just a lot of stop and go, and when you are traveling 11 hours, the fewer stops you have to make, the better,” he said.
For these families, it was their first time traveling this route, but the headaches along Route 23 are all too familiar for locals like Dave Jeffries.
“Very busy a lot of traffic all the time,” he said. “The north end is pretty busy these days.”
He takes the route often from Powell into Delaware and Alum Creek, but he is unsure if reducing traffic lights is a good idea.
“I think it will probably increase some accidents given the amount of retail and stops along the way. I could see it further up, but maybe not in this section,” he said.
ODOT expects it will do the opposite. The department is predicting the changes will reduce travel time in half and reduce crashes by up to 250 each year.
The project is still in the approval process, so it is unclear if the updates could be in effect by next Fourth of July.
It could cost anywhere from $1.4 to $1.9 billion.