Do Ohioans want a connector route between U.S. 23 and Interstate 71 in north central Ohio? Depends on which Ohioan you ask and where they live.
Support for the connector, which ODOT is currently studying at the direction of the Ohio Legislature, is mostly divided along geographic lines. Many northwestern Ohioans want the connector. Many north central Ohioans don’t.
Northwestern Ohio officials, like Brian Dicken, Toledo Chamber of Commerce’s vice president of advocacy and strategic initiatives, said the route will better connect their region to Columbus and central Ohio and move commercial traffic along smoother. The current route down U.S. 23 is too unpredictable, Dicken said.
“We’ve had conversations that (businesses) don’t know is it going to take two and a half hours or four hours to get one way. And so, what that unpredictability causes is, maybe they can only schedule a driver for one round trip a day. So, then it starts to have an impact on operations,” Dicken said.
Morrow County resident Jennifer Williams said her north central Ohio community is largely opposed to the connector. It would take peoples’ land, cut off major roads, complicate emergency services and the county wouldn’t even be able to reap any economic benefit from the route, Williams said.
“We’re just getting all the cons with none of the pros,” she said.
ODOT has narrowed down the connector’s possible route to five options, all of them passing north of the village of Ashley. These routes would keep the connector mostly out of Delaware County, instead cutting primarily through Marion and Morrow counties.
Ashley Mayor David Lockhart said the connector is on everyone’s mind in his rural community. Most residents are opposed to it, he said, because they don’t want their homes or farms impacted by a new highway. The connector would, however, benefit the village itself, Lockhart said.
“If it’s done right and it takes a lot of truck traffic that right now passes through the village on State Road 229 between 71 and 23, that’s a benefit to the village separate from all the turmoil for the real landowners that are impacted by it,” he said.
Does the Ohio Legislature support the connector?
Ohio Senator Andrew Brenner, whose 19th District represents a stretch of north central Ohio from Delaware County to Knox County, doesn’t support the connector route. He told The Dispatch he doesn’t know if it will actually improve traffic in his district, and he said ODOT hasn’t adequately studied how it would impact traffic on I-71.
In addition, ODOT’s leading routes for the connector pass through an area prone to flooding. He said he’d rather the state spend its money upgrading U.S. 23.
“I think it’s probably 30 years too late to make (U.S. 23) a freeway, but they can do things to upgrade it to help drastically improve traffic flow,” he said.
Ohio Senator Paula Hicks-Hudson, who represents Toledo, said she and her business constituents are for the connector. They need a shipping route to central Ohio and beyond that doesn’t pass through the frequently congested U.S. 23, she said.
“We have to address safety concerns and to make sure that supplies and commodities and goods are able to get from point A to point B in a timely and consistent manner so that companies know that their supplies will arrive when they’re supposed to arrive without delays and things like that,” she said.
ODOT has until Oct. 1 to complete a feasibility study on the connector route. Then, it would be up to the Ohio Legislature and state leaders to determine if it should ever be built.
What about U.S. 23?
Ohioans opposed to the connector route have a common refrain: fix U.S. 23 instead.
“Fix what you have. Use what you have and fix it,” Williams said.
ODOT released a study in January 2025 that outlined 33 improvements the state could make to U.S. 23 to relieve the congestion that occurs in Delaware County, ranging from new medians and new traffic signals to lane widening. The study, dubbed Route 23 Connect, and others the department has done were insufficient, Hicks-Hudson said.
“It’s about commerce, safety. And the plans that ODOT first rolled out I don’t think accomplishes either one,” she said.
Transportation and neighborhoods reporter Nathan Hart can be reached at NHart@dispatch.com, @NathanRHart on X and nathanhart.dispatch.com on Bluesky.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Many NW Ohioans want U.S. 23/I-71 connector, north central Ohioans oppose it
Reporting by Nathan Hart, Columbus Dispatch / The Columbus Dispatch
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
