HOWLAND — The Ohio Department of Transportation has released a list of detours for next week’s four-day road closure near the diverging diamond interchange construction project.

State Route 46 under state Route 82 will be closed May 19 through the morning of May 23 as workers will begin removing the eastbound Route 82 bridge. The Route 46 northbound detour will be Route 82 east to state Route 193 to Route 82 west. The Route 46 southbound detour will be Route 82 west to state Route 5 to Route 82 east to Route 46.

As traffic is redirected, demolition of the Route 82 eastbound structure will begin, according to Justin Chesnic, public information officer for ODOT District Four.

“We did this last year for a three-to-four-day period while we tore down the westbound bridge,” Chesnic said. “The one thing that’s really important here, is that we really want motorists to use that (detour) route. What happened last year was a lot of motorists went on the local side streets and kind of backed up the system.”

If motorists travel on the posted detour routes, Chesnic said, traffic should be able to flow better in the construction area during the four-day closure.

“Really the rest of the summer, you’ll just see crews building that bridge, doing some ramp work, and some drainage work on 46,” Chesnic said. “That’s the main bulk of work here for the remainder of the year. The goal is by the end of 2024 to have that eastbound structure done, and then next year, we’ll start working on 46 itself, underneath, creating the actual DDI.”

PATIENCE

When Route 46 under Route 82 first was closed for the diamond project in October, residents were concerned how traffic would flow and some residents proceeded to find their own shortcuts, rather than follow the state’s detours.

Chesnic again is urging residents to continue following the state’s planned traffic pattern to lessen such concerns, and keep traffic appropriately moving.

“We’ll have the detours well signed,” Chesnic said.

The state, however, has less control over alternative routes being traveled.

“When it comes to that local traffic, it would typically become a local enforcement issue, whether it’s the county sheriff, local township police, or state patrol, to enforce traffic on those routes,” Chesnic said. “What typically happens is when roads close, people try to find the quickest way around. But when you’re impacting that many motorists, sometimes those local routes kind of get clogged and bogged down. We want to avoid that.”

If travelers would follow all of the routes posted by the state, it would keep local routes for the community “set up to handle detour traffic,” Chesnic said.

“It’s a change,” Chesnic said. “There’s a few of these in the state, and we’re building a few more around the State of Ohio. The main thing with the DDI is it’s a safety improvement. We have a lot of crashes at that intersection there, those ramps at 46 and 82. We’re going to reduce the conflict points there.”

The conflict points that Chesnic described include left turns across multiple lanes of traffic and less traffic signals.

“The whole overall goal of this is to improve safety,” Chesnic said. “Once we open it and folks get used to it, you’ll see that the safety numbers are typically very successful within a corridor like this. It will make traffic flow better, less congested and provide a safer and better route for motorists.”

Chesnic also said that District 4 could create a driver education video to show Valley travelers how to drive through it.

“We’ll do some outreach and some education prior to this opening to kind of give folks an understanding of how it flows and how to navigate through the DDI,” he said.

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