BY DAVID ECK
Enquirer Contributor
FRANKLIN -- Officials are looking for state help to upgrade Ohio 73 from near Meadowview Drive west to Riley Boulevard at the edge of downtown. The city is applying for about $1 million in state Issue 2 funds for a $1.34 million project to widen Ohio 73 from three lanes to five. The city will kick in the rest, said Don Woods, Franklin's chief building official.
The request is for the 1999 construction season, he said.
This town has grown steadily in recent years and Ohio 73 is congested during rush hours as drivers use it to get to and from Interstate 75. Each afternoon, a long line of cars stretches up the hill back toward the interstate. The city's population has jumped from 11,026 in 1990 to about 12,000 today.
About 28,000 cars a day travel through the intersection of Ohio 73 and Riley Boulevard, said Franklin Mayor James Mears.
"This is work traffic heading to the interstate," he said. "It gets about a five-minute delay now, but it is getting worse." Mr. Woods is optimistic that the city will get the Issue 2 money, and should know by October whether the request will be approved. Under the Issue 2 program, the state borrows money for road improvement projects throughout Ohio.
"Right now we're the No. 2 project in Warren County for next year," he said. "We've already jumped through all the hoops we're supposed to jump through."
A $500,000 project to improve Pike Street in South Lebanon is the only one ahead of the work in Franklin, Mr. Woods said.
Once the state funding is in place, work could start next summer and finish by the end of the year, he said. Engineering work on the project could begin late this year or in early 1999.
"The need arises strictly out of traffic counts," Mr. Woods said. "We can see the traffic counts steadily going up."
