Nearly a half-century ago, the Ohio Department of Transportation took a sliver of Catherine Balwinski’s Springfield Township property to build I-475.

“Now they want the rest,” Mrs. Balwinski said of tentative state and Lucas County plans for a freeway interchange at Dorr Street that would, in part, consume the south end of her 3.3 acres on Dorr Street and cut off street access to all of it.

ODOT and the Lucas County Transportation Improvement District announced study findings Thursday for interchange designs at Dorr and at Maumee-Western Road (U.S. 20A) in Maumee.

The selection of a dual-roundabout design at Dorr as the “preferred alternative” had little bearing, however, for either Mrs. Balwinski or any of the other 15 nearby property owners identified on planning maps as “significantly impacted” by the proposed interchange.

The other interchange design that was studied, a “tight diamond,” listed all but one of those properties as “significantly affected,” which Jeff Lohse, chief deputy engineer with the Lucas County Engineer’s Office, said means they’re likely to be total buyouts for the project if it’s built.

The dual-roundabout design occupies just enough of one more residential property on the interchange’s southeast side to make that property a likely take, Mr. Lohse said.

Seven of the likely property acquisitions, meanwhile, are not direct consequences of the interchange itself, but rather of a federal rule forbidding driveways or intersections within 600 feet of it.

The 600-foot rule is why the project plan calls for Joyce Lane and Saturn Drive to be cut off from Dorr and tied together with a looping road that would pass through the sites of four houses on Dorr’s south side. It also drives proposed construction of cul-de-sac access roads for properties around the interchange’s northeast, southwest, and northwest quadrants, without which those properties would become landlocked, Mr. Lohse said.

Access to Joyce and Saturn would be maintained from the south, via Calla Lane.

Besides the 16 likely property takes, 29 other privately owned parcels and Toledo’s Cuba Saturn park would be less significantly affected by the project — mostly by Dorr’s widening from two lanes to five or the access roads’ construction.

The proposed interchange at Maumee-Western, by contrast, does not “significantly” affect any privately owned property, according to the study report.

The recommended “diverging diamond” interchange covers entirely unbuilt land, and much of it belongs to Lucas County thanks to acquisitions during the last two decades by the Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority.

The port authority bought land along I-475 in that area specifically to preserve its availability for a future interchange at Maumee-Western, which its planners viewed as a future primary route to Toledo Express Airport, before development drove up its price.

If built, the interchanges would be part of a project to widen I-475/​U.S. 23 between Dorr and the Maumee River.

No construction money has been allocated for any of that work, although project planners expect to give a presentation to the state’s Transportation Review Advisory Council this fall. 

TRAC’s primary role is to determine funding priorities for major additions to Ohio’s highway network.

Besides being favored for safety and traffic-flow efficiency, the roundabout option at Dorr is expected to be $3 million cheaper, at $15.5 million instead of $18.5 million for a “tight diamond.” The Maumee-Western interchange is budgeted at $28.9 million, including the cost of integrating it into the Salisbury/​Dussel interchange nearby.

Carolyn Kulczak, whose home at 6363 Dorr stands in the way of the interchange there, said she’d prefer not to move from the place where she has lived for 40 years, but wouldn’t want to live any closer to traffic than she already does, either.

“I would just like to know when it’s going to get started, that they would not tell us at the last minute,” Mrs. Kulczak said.

Mrs. Balwinski, meanwhile, said cheerfully that at age 90, she doesn’t expect the state to need her home until after she’s gone.

“We built the house, and I want to live here for the rest of my life if I can. Now I’m just in a race with them,” she said.

Contact David Patch at: dpatch@theblade.com or 419-724-6094.

First Published August 7, 2015, 4:00 a.m.