For many decades, at least going back to the 1950s, Toledoans have been concerned about more direct access to the state capital.
The issue became a breaking point between this newspaper’s editorial board and the last governor from Lucas County, Michael V. DiSalle.
Mr. DiSalle, who served one term, 1959-1963, promised to undertake the planning and construction of such a road. It didn’t happen, and when he ran for re-election he did so without The Blade’s endorsement, and he lost.
The problem has only exploded since then, which has made the solution so much more complicated and expensive than it would have been in 1960.
The uncontrolled sprawl in metro Delaware, Ohio, has utterly clogged U.S. 23 with at-grade intersections and red lights that delay through-traffic.
Remarkably, the potential for Toledo — and northwest Ohio generally — to get a limited-access route all the way to Columbus has suddenly improved immensely. Last week, the General Assembly approved a transportation budget that requires the Department of Transportation, in conjunction with the Ohio Turnpike Infrastructure Commission, to provide detailed planning of five possible bypass routes. Gov. Mike DeWine is expected to sign the legislation.
The bill includes $500,000 and requires production of these plans by Oct. 1.
Clearly, drawing up plans on paper is easy. Delaware is so developed along U.S. 23 and is still growing so fast that creation of a new highway route around Delaware County to connect with the Columbus beltway, I-270, will require costly land acquisitions and difficult decisions impacting environmental and historic locations.
But it has to be done.
The Blade’s suggested route is one that takes off from U.S. 23 at State Route 529 near Marion and connects with I-71 near Sunbury, Ohio. Such a bypass would help truck traffic from greater Toledo and the soon-to-open Gordie Howe Bridge from Canada get to the proposed computer chip manufacturing complex near New Albany, Ohio.
How this project, the cost of which has been ballparked at around $2 billion, would be funded can be guessed at by the inclusion of the Turnpike Commission. The Commission has the power to bond highway projects outside the turnpike itself.
We would discourage planning for a toll road, as it might be taken as an insult to Toledoans that we would be the one Ohio city that would have to pay a toll in exchange for quick access to the state capital.
Local groups such as the Toledo Metropolitan Area Council of Governments and the Toledo Regional Chamber of Commerce and state Sens. Paula Hicks-Hudson (D., Toledo) and Bill Reineke (R., Tiffin) deserve credit for achieving the first positive movement toward a U.S. 23 bypass.
The work of actually making the DeWine administration put this on a construction track begins.
First Published March 23, 2025, 4:00 a.m.
