COLUMBUS – For those who believe Ohio recognizes only two seasons – winter and “orange barrel” – we’re here to let you know winter is over.
The Ohio Department of Transportation officially kicked off its 2022 construction season Monday.
ODOT will spend nearly $2 billion on 829 projects, improving 661 bridges and 7,626 miles of pavement, enough to cover the distance from Columbus to London, England and back. Ninety-five cents of every dollar spent goes toward preserving existing infrastructure, ODOT officials said.
There are 222 projects aimed directly at improving safety, including the continuing $1.4 billion Downtown Ramp Up “mega project” in Columbus, which will fix the biggest safety and congestion issues along the I-70/71 downtown corridor, addressing three of the state’s top 10 crash locations by eliminating nearly 70% of the lane changes on the short stretch of interstate, state officials said.
While overall traffic volumes in Ohio continue to trend slightly below pre-pandemic levels, ODOT officials say truck traffic is more than 13% higher than the same period in 2019.
A large number of orange-barrel zones also means a large number of crashes involving ODOT equipment and personnel, many of which have proven deadly to construction workers and motorists, so safety is construction zones is a priority again this year for transportation officials.
In 2021, 30 people died in 26 work-zone crashes. ODOT workers, vehicles, and equipment were hit 154 times last year, the agency reported. There were a total of 4,796 crashes in Ohio work zones, 35% of which occurred with workers present.
Speed is one of the biggest safety issues in work zones. In 2021, the Ohio State Highway Patrol issued 6,015 citations in work zones with 41% being more than 20 mph over the posted speed limit.