Douglas Rd. 475 on-ramp to close

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Published: 1/31/2012 - Updated: 1 hour ago

BY DAVID PATCH
BLADE STAFF WRITER

ODOT warns of an I-475 ramp closure. It was unclear late Tuesday why the sign says 120 days but a state official predicted 7 months. THE BLADE/JEREMY WADSWORTH Enlarge | Photo Reprints

West Toledoans: Still have your detour routes for the Douglas Road entrance to eastbound I-475 in the backs of your heads, or programmed into your navigation boxes?

Good, because the ramp that was closed for more than half of 2011 will close again, for seven months, starting Feb. 13, the Ohio Department of Transportation has announced.

The shutdown will allow construction of a retaining wall along the ramp and eastbound lanes immediately east of Douglas, similar to walls built on the westbound side. Its timing is a consequence of both the unusually wet weather that beset Toledo during most of 2011, and the unusually warm, snowless conditions in the city for most of this winter.

Originally, the retaining wall was to have been built during the 2011 ramp shutdown, which ran from mid-May until Dec. 2. But while the ramp itself was rebuilt then, the wet weather put contractor E.S. Wagner months behind schedule for wall construction, so that part of the work never started.

ODOT officials said in December that the ramp would close again in late March or early April to build the wall -- "whenever the weather breaks," district construction engineer Dennis Charvat said at the time.

But thanks to favorable construction weather, contractor E.S. Wagner is ready now to move on the work that requires shutting the ramp back down, Mike Gramza, the department's planning and engineering administrator in Bowling Green, said Tuesday.

"They're able to get in there and get working on a noise wall and retaining wall on that side," Mr. Gramza said.

The Douglas entrance is to reopen about Aug. 24 -- weather permitting, of course.

When it began in August, 2010, construction of the $64 million project to widen I-475 between Douglas and I-75 and replace four scattered ramps near Jackman Road and Central Avenue with a single interchange at a new ProMedica Parkway was to wrap up by June, 2013.

But a very wet spring last year quickly set construction back. By September, ODOT had extended the completion deadline to the end of the 2013 construction season, and Mr. Gramza said that more excessive rain in the fall put even that target in doubt.

Mild winter weather is helping now, he said, and ODOT "is working with the contractor to accelerate the schedule where they can."

The Douglas exit from westbound I-475, closed since mid-April, now is expected to reopen in July. It was more severely affected by last year's weather, because in late April part of a slope just east of Sherbrooke Road on the westbound side -- near where the exit diverges from the freeway -- began collapsing after a rainstorm.

The slope was stabilized with temporary steel sheet piling, and now project managers have settled on a redesign for the retaining wall there that will allow that part of the project to resume.

Soil conditions in a small area near Sherbrooke "were much weaker than expected," Mr. Gramza said. That will be counteracted by using heavy piles, sunk into shafts drilled five feet into bedrock, to anchor the retaining wall there, he said.

The northern abutment for the Sherbrooke Road bridge over the freeway, to be rebuilt as part of the project, will be reinforced because of the soil problem, too, Mr. Gramza said.

January was the seventh straight month with wetter than average weather at Toledo Express Airport, according to the National Weather Service.

But January also is typically one of the driest months of the year in Toledo, and with most precipitation falling as snow. Toledo received just 6.7 inches of snow this January, 4.7 inches less than normal, and the 2.42 inches of total precipitation that had fallen by late Tuesday was 0.37 inch higher than normal for the month.

More January precipitation than usual fell as rain because the month was 4.7 degrees warmer than normal -- a 30.2-degree average daily mean temperature, instead of the normal 25.5 degrees.

But neither the warm temperatures nor the low snowfall was extreme enough to make any Top 10 rankings lists. Among recent Januaries, both 2002 (35.2 degrees) and 2006 (36.6 degrees) were significantly warmer.

Tuesday was the warmest day of the month with a high of 58 at Toledo Express -- five degrees shy of the record for the date set in 1989.

A storm approaching the area was expected to usher in cooler air by Wednesday evening, with a chance of snow showers forecast for early Thursday, but National Weather Service forecasters expected warmer-than-normal temperatures to persist through the weekend.

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

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STORY:20120131043 Douglas Rd. 475 on-ramp to close http://www.toledoblade.com/local/2012/01/31/Douglas-Road-entrance-on-1-475-to-close.html -1

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