BY LUCY MAY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
More help is on the way for motorists and pedestrians trying to navigate their way through downtown during Fort Washington Way construction.
Already, city crews have installed dozens of new blue and red road signs for vehicles showing how to get to interstates from downtown and the riverfront now that familiar Fort Washington Way ramps are closed.
Cincinnati public works inspector John Kibby said crews are 75 percent finished installing more than 100 new signs, and they hope to be finished late Friday.
The crews can testify the signs are needed, he said.
"About every 10 minutes, somebody stops and asks directions," Mr. Kibby said. "I feel like a road map."
Signs for pedestrians also are being installed around the city, said Marcia Shortt, graphic design director in the city's architecture division.
Some are up along Pete Rose Way. The green and orange signs there point to stairs that connect the riverfront to downtown.
More signs are being produced for motorists to tell them how to get to Covington, downtown and the riverfront without using Fort Washington Way, she said.
"Everybody's really doing their best to do as much as they can to make this as easy as possible," Mrs. Shortt said.
Still, some commuters have chosen to avoid the road completely. Lisa McWhorter, of Hamilton, usually takes the Freeman Avenue exit to get to her office downtown. But she gave Fort Washington Way a try Wednesday morning, and she sat in traffic for more than 20 minutes.
"I'm not going to do it again," she said.
The $146.9 million highway project is designed to narrow the city's east-west connector and eliminate the highway's unsafe ramps. It's scheduled to be finished in August 2000.
