Good news for drivers: the eastbound lanes of the Norwood Lateral may be open for your Wednesday morning commute. The Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) reports work on the eastbound lanes of State Route 562 is complete enough to reopen.
"We are opening up the eastbound lanes starting (Tuesday night)," says Kathleen Fuller, ODOT District 8 public information officer. "It should be open to all traffic by rush hour time (Wednesday) morning."
While the agency had hoped to have the lateral open in time for the Memorial Day weekend travel holiday, it is still coming in about two days ahead of the planned 80-day construction window.
The eastbound lanes of the highway closed in early March for resurfacing and other repairs. Crews will now begin preparing to do the same work on the westbound lanes.
"Right now, the schedule is to start the closure at probably 9 or 10 o'clock Sunday, June 9, that night," Fuller says. They'll get started so that by the early morning hours (on June 10), it'll be closed to westbound traffic."
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That work is also slated to take around 80 days.
Weather, Fuller adds, has been the biggest factor. Crews had been ahead of schedule in mid-April, leading the department to suggest it was possible the Norwood Lateral might be open in both directions for Memorial Day weekend. However, rain and inclement weather slowed progress.
Once the westbound work is completed, there will be some finishing work that will need to be done in both directions.
Explains Fuller, "These would be ... painting the structural steel underneath the bridges, doing some concrete sealing, that sort of thing that they want to do in the warm weather months and dry weather. Those are types of things that may not even happen until next year."
