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Ohio 4 has to be wider, ODOT told

By BRAD KANE
bradkane@sanduskyregister.com

PERKINS TWP. - Erie County's public officials pitched ideas to the Ohio Department of Transportation Friday for expanding Ohio 4 to make it similar to the U.S. 250 corridor.

"We need to do this. Development will occur out there," Erie County Commissioner Nancy McKeen said. "We need to get started now."

McKeen discussed widening Ohio 4 to either three or four lanes from Perkins Avenue to the Ohio Turnpike. She said the $1.4-million extension of the left turn lane from Perkins Avenue south to Wade Boulevard to be completed on July 15, 2006 will help ease some congestion.

ODOT District 3 Planning Administrator Ken Wright said Erie County could get a further expansion of Ohio 4 through two methods.

The first, which he didn't recommend, was to wait for ODOT to start the project.

"I don't see Route 4 coming up on our radar screen anytime soon," Wright said.

The better idea is to use local money to contract with a consultant to study what kind of expansion Ohio 4 would need, he said.

"It is a much more complicated study than what we did on U.S. 250," Wright said.

The study ODOT commissioned for U.S. 250 to relieve congestion between Bogart Road and U.S. 6 cost $600,000.

"We will have to have local funding to widen Route 4," McKeen said.

The commissioners could raise the county bed tax to 3 percent to come up with the funds for an Ohio 4 widening study, McKeen said.

ODOT District 3 Deputy Director Tom O'Leary suggested local government officials try to raise some private funds for the study using companies like Cedar Point that have a stake in improving traffic flow.

O'Leary also wants Erie County officials to make sure it is Ohio 4 they want expanded into a corridor and not other routes like U.S. 6 or Ohio 101.

Sandusky is working to develop U.S. 6 between the city and Huron, so the road needs to reflect the traffic flow.

"We are working very hard to get the development side of it in," Sandusky City Manager Mike Will said.

Perkins Township Trustee Jerry Baumgardner said he believes Ohio 4 needs to go to at least three lanes in some areas.

Baumgardner, who lives on Ohio 4 two miles south of Bogart Road, said the traffic during the summer can get backed up to his house and further from the Bogart Road intersection as some cars are trying to turn left.

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