A new I-475 interchange in Maumee originally slated to open late last year now has been pushed back until early summer.
Kelsie Hoagland, an Ohio Department of Transportation spokesman in Bowling Green, said Kokosing Construction Co., the state contractor for an I-475/U.S. 23 widening project that includes the interchange, has chosen to focus on tasks relating to the freeway mainline as it resumed work this week after a winter hiatus.
Kokosing’s $102 million contract has a June 30 completion date, by which time it is obligated to open the new ramps at U.S. 20A, also known as Maumee-Western Road. Ms. Hoagland said the ramps could reopen a bit later than that, in early July, if any sustained spring rain hits the Toledo area.
The fundamental logic, the ODOT spokesman said, is that since the U.S. 20A interchange is new, motorists already know their way around without using it, whereas the other project work affects roadways traffic already uses.
The largest piece of unfinished business on the I-475/U.S. 23 mainline is paving the northbound side’s final surface layer through the entire zone from U.S. 24 to Angola Road. The northbound lanes in that area carried bidirectional traffic while the southbound lanes were rebuilt last year, so paving the surface course was held off until after the two-way pattern was removed.
That paving will be done at night, but other touch-ups already under way caused full-time lane closings starting Monday.
The contractor also has to install cable-rail barrier along the I-475 through the work zone and has finish work to do on U.S. 24 resurfacing west of I-475 that was included in the contract.
Ms. Hoagland said Kokosing also was asked to add some drainage repairs on U.S. 24 between Fallen Timbers Lane and Monclova Road that were flagged by ODOT maintenance crews.
Once Kokosing is ready to work on the new ramps, its tasks will include
● completing the installation of traffic signals and street lights at the ramp intersections on U.S. 20A
● finishing a bicycle path along that roadway
● milling and paving U.S. 20A’s intersection with Briarfield Boulevard, plus 500 feet of U.S. 20A on either side
● completing the surface pavement layers on U.S. 20A through the intersection and on the northbound I-475 collector-distributor lane for the U.S. 20A and Salisbury/Dussel intersections
● erecting signs and applying pavement markings, and
● final grading and seeding.
The surface paving on U.S. 20A will close the road for seven days, yet to be scheduled, between Briarfield and Mingo Drive, Ms. Hoagland said.
First Published March 22, 2025, 11:20 a.m.
