(Columbus) – With winter officially over, one thing that Ohio Department of Transportation crews didn’t have to do much was fill potholes. ODOT’s Matt Bruning says that helps the roads stay in good shape longer, and halos means you’ll be less likely to need a front-end alignment.
Bruning also says that during the height of Ohio’s stay-at-home order, ODOT crews were able to speed up a lot of road construction projects, by doing a lot of daytime lane closures when traffic volumes were down. Those volumes on freeways were down as much as 49% the last two months. He says it was actually possible to, in a hypothetical example, to close down lanes of Cleveland’s George V. Voinovich (Innerbelt) Bridge during the daytime. During regular traffic conditions, it would have been a nightmare.
One thing ODOT is not sure of yet is how much fewer tax dollars from gasoline and diesel fuel were collected during the stay-at-home order. Bruning says that money comes to ODOT a few months after the fuel is sold.He says ODOT is already planning for what road projects can be held up a year or two because of lower tax revenues.
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