State Route 60 Rebuild Near Completion

BLUE ROCK, Ohio – The Ohio Department of Transportation revealed details regarding the completion of the State Route 60 reconstruction project.

The roadbed replacement, which began in the spring of 2021 is anticipated to be completed by November 20th. ODOT Public Information Officer Chas Cosgrave shared what motorists can expect in the coming weeks ahead.

“Currently we are just finishing up with the actual reconstruction portion of the road that was delayed due to some issues that we had with the conditions of the subsurface soil being poorer than we expected. So that has caused some delays in the project. Good news is; is that will be going away soon. All of our work that’s remaining will be surface work.  That will be directed under a flagging operation. So no more zones, no more temporary signals and things of that nature,” Cosgrave said.

Inconsistency of the various subsurfaces, as well as the need to accommodate residential driveway access, forced ODOT to close one lane of traffic, in brief segments, along three different sections of the highway, over the past four construction seasons.

“So, currently our goal is to have this project wrapped up by November 20th,” Cosgrave said. “Obviously that’s weather dependent as in all things that we do here at ODOT. So if the weather is cooperative,  if the conditions continue to stay the way that they currently are, November 20th is the goal we’re hoping for. Now obviously that’s going to be a floating goal, based on all the variables in the project. So we may return next construction season to do the surface course to kind of put a better finish on the roadway with a smoother drive for the motorists.”

Performing the work while keeping the roadway open to the public has been a challenge, but was necessary because the state didn’t have any convenient, alternative routes to create an acceptable detour.