Permanent repairs to the Detroit Avenue bridge over I-75 just north of Monroe Street likely will wait until at least 2026 after an over-height truck damaged it Friday evening, the Ohio Department of Transportation said Monday.
The freeway reopened Sunday evening after demolition of the damaged part of the bridge, while Detroit remained closed for most of Monday until a fence was installed atop a temporary barrier wall cordoning off the affected area. It reopened to southbound traffic just after 4:30 p.m. and northbound shortly thereafter.
ODOT next will meet with city of Toledo officials to begin planning how to repair the bridge permanently, which will include deciding whether its lane configuration should be kept the same, said Kelsie Hoagland, a spokesman at the department’s district office in Bowling Green.
Before the crash, the bridge had six lanes — two lanes each way for through traffic plus a left-turn lane for southbound vehicles turning onto an entrance ramp for southbound I-75 and a right-turn lane for northbound vehicles entering northbound I-75.
That northbound right-turn lane is now blocked, but there is sufficient room at the bridge’s north end for motorists to make a smooth turn toward the I-75 entrance ramp, Ms. Hoagland said, while two northbound lanes have been kept open.
The new layout also provides a sidewalk only on the bridge’s southbound side.
“We’re expecting this particular configuration to remain for the rest of this year,” she said Monday afternoon.
The bridge was last overhauled in 2003, when its deck was replaced.
It was damaged Friday when a truck with a flatbed for roll-off waste bins went under it on the freeway’s southbound side with the flatbed raised.
Ms. Hoagland said the raised bed nicked the first bridge beam the truck passed under, beneath the edge of Detroit’s southbound lanes. The force of that impact deflected the truck enough that it missed the next few beams before hitting the last beam, beneath the edge of Detroit’s northbound lanes, hard enough to cause major damage.
No information was available Monday afternoon as to whether the truck driver had been charged with any traffic violation.
ODOT closed I-75 and Detroit Avenue after the incident — the latter as a safety precaution while the beam and damaged deck section above it were torn down. While southbound I-75 was closed only between the I-475 Jeep Split and the Lawrence Avenue entrance about a mile to the south, the northbound lanes were closed from State Rt. 795 in Wood County through central Toledo to I-475.
ODOT said it closed that much of northbound I-75 to prevent major traffic jams around any forced-exit point near downtown Toledo. It recommended that through traffic use the full length of I-475 as a detour route, while Route 795 offered an alternative using I-280.
First Published March 24, 2025, 8:44 p.m.
