More than 200 people turned out on Tuesday evening, Nov. 10, for an Ohio Department of Transportation open house at Chieftain Elementary School in Logan on a major safety rebuild of US 33 in Hocking County — a $153.8 million plan to turn a crash-prone stretch of the highway into a limited-access road, the Athens Messenger reported.
The stretch in question runs from the Fairfield-Hocking county line to Chieftain Drive, state Route 180, in Hocking County, the Athens Messenger reported. The crash record is the reason for the project: "There were 256 crashes in that three-four year period with a 36% injury rate," Bryan Newell of the consulting firm Environmental Design Group told the open house, in comments the Athens Messenger reported.
"A couple years ago, ODOT was able to secure some money to look at the crashes that were occurring throughout this corridor, and they asked us to help do an analysis of that crash history," Newell said, in comments the Athens Messenger reported. "So we have a process where we look at three years of crash data, do a bunch of analysis, and come up with different types (of crashes) that were occurring."
ODOT’s strategy is to separate local traffic from through traffic by removing the places where vehicles are most likely to collide, the Athens Messenger reported. The plan removes all existing at-grade intersections, installs roundabouts at key intersections, builds about seven miles of new access roads on both sides of the highway, puts in a new interchange at Rockbridge, changes the state Route 180 interchange, relocates Buck Run, and adds a new bridge at Clear Creek while replacing existing bridges Newell described as "kind of falling apart," the Athens Messenger reported.
"Some of the things that we can do to make it better… are separating the traffic that is trying to do local things with the traffic that’s just trying to get through here," Newell explained, in comments the Athens Messenger reported. "And one of the ways to do that is to take out all of the at-grade crossings along the corridor and replace them with more of an interchange style situation, which then allows us to consolidate all those kind of lower volume access points into one centralized point that is designed to safely handle that type of traffic."
Fewer access points create their own problem — how residents reach their homes and businesses — and the access roads are the answer, Newell said, in comments the Athens Messenger reported: the new roads on either side of US 33 "will basically act like a rural state highway or state road that will then allow you to access your driveways and your businesses and everything else, just kind of normally like you would when 33, back in the day, was only two lanes."
The money and the timeline are both substantial. The estimated budget is $149.8 million for construction and $4 million for acquiring rights of way, for a total of $153.8 million, the Athens Messenger reported. The project has just entered its engineering and detailed design phase, and on ODOT’s tentative schedule right-of-way acquisition and utility coordination begin in 2028, with construction in 2030 and 2031, Matthew First, a planning engineer for ODOT and the project’s manager, told the open house, in comments the Athens Messenger reported.
First was candid about the catch: "the project does not have secured construction funding, so our timeline to actually construct the project is still a little bit up in the air. But as we develop the project, our intent is to be ready in 2030 for construction," he said, in comments the Athens Messenger reported. In other words, the design is being finished so the project is shovel-ready if and when the construction money lands.
For property owners in the corridor, the open house was also the place to ask what happens if the highway needs their land. ODOT personnel were on hand to answer questions about acquisition, and printed information included documents on ODOT’s Relocation Assistance Program for those whose property is acquired, the Athens Messenger reported. Detailed maps were on display around the room and are posted on the project’s website, the Messenger reported.
Road safety money is moving elsewhere in Southeast Ohio this fall as well — NewsForce247 reported earlier today on a $300,000 grant funding home repairs for low-income Southeast Ohio homeowners, and the region’s other big-ticket worry, the Ohio University E. coli investigation in Athens, is covered in our report on the 11 confirmed student cases. The US 33 corridor, though, is the region’s largest single infrastructure proposal on the table.
What we know — and what we’re still waiting on: the confirmed facts are the crash record (256 crashes, 36% injury rate), the design (limited access, roundabouts, seven miles of access roads, a new Rockbridge interchange), the $153.8 million estimate, and the tentative 2028/2030-31 schedule, all as ODOT and its consultant presented them at the open house, the Athens Messenger reported. What is not secured is the construction funding itself — ODOT says so plainly — and final design decisions can still shift as public comments come in.
What happens next: comments on the project are due by Dec. 10, 2026, submitted through the project website or to Matthew First, ODOT District 10, 338 Muskingum Drive, Marietta, the Athens Messenger reported. The project page is at transportation.ohio.gov under the US 33 safety project, and the design phase continues toward the 2028 right-of-way step.