BG construction projects underway on one of the city’s busiest roads

BOWLING GREEN, Ohio (WTVG) - It’s one of the busiest roads in Bowling Green. Wooster Street is getting a makeover. But future projects are also on the way near Bowling Green State University’s campus.

“There’s a lot of construction in Bowling Green these days,” says Joe Fawcett, Director of Public Services for the City of Bowling Green.

Right now, it’s a repaving project on Wooster Street and work started a couple of weeks ago.

“It was our hope to do this over the summer,” Fawcett said. “Unfortunately, there were some issues on the contractor side of this that delayed it a little bit.”

With BGSU students back on campus, more than 20,000 drivers use this stretch of Wooster daily.

“Wooster is one of the major arteries for Bowling Green,” explains Fawcett. “The engineers worked with the contractor to ensure that lanes of traffic were maintained, at least one lane in each direction, and they’ve done a pretty good job of doing that.”

But the slow-going is still forcing some commuting students to find a way around, like Claire Sullivan, a senior who commutes to BGSU.

“I had to take another back road because it’s very slow,” Sullivan explains. “I don’t like it; I hope they finish it soon.”

Junior BGSU student Sara Stull also commutes.

“I have to take a different way, and it’s really hard if I have a class in the Education Building, it’s very hard to get there, so I usually just park here and walk it,” Stull said.

Another senior, Molly Bytwerk, drives to school and has to find a different way.

“You can’t go through it most of the time,” Bytwerk says. “You have to go all the way around. I go the same way, and normally it’s a two-minute drive but now I have to go all the way around and leave early.”

As for businesses in the area, Fawcett says he’s talked with some of the owners.

“They were looking forward to the improvements,” Fawcett says. “Obviously it comes with some headaches with the orange barrels and restricting traffic here and there.”

Fawcett tells 13abc that the paving portion of work is expected to be completed this week, with new lanes and crosswalks slated to be painted over the next few weeks. But more work is scheduled to start next spring on a brand-new roundabout.

A spokesperson with ODOT tells 13abc that the focus of that project will be safety. In a statement to 13abc, Kelsie Hoagland with ODOT says:

“The future Wooster St. roundabout at Campbell Hill in Bowling Green is the third phase of work from the City of Bowling Green’s 2015 Wooster Street Corridor Study. Roundabout work will begin in spring 2023 and will remain open to traffic (one lane in each direction) during construction. A new landscaped median will eliminate left turns across multiple lanes of traffic and reduce/eliminate the opportunity for T-bone crashes in the corridor. The roundabout will provide a natural U-turn location to accommodate access to businesses once the project is complete. Lastly, the project will add/improve pedestrian infrastructure on both sides of the road for safer pedestrian mobility.”

You can find more information on the repaving project on Wooster Street on the City of Bowling Green’s website.

For more information on next year’s roundabout project, you can visit ODOT’s website.

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