By James Pilcher
The Cincinnati Enquirer

LEBANON - Already a major chokepoint for commuters, Interstate 75 could be a lot tighter this summer as orange barrels make their annual appearance.

Ohio highway officials Tuesday said they will be limiting traffic along the expressway to two lanes for less than a mile, but right under the interchange with Interstate 275 at Sharonville.

"This is a critical situation for us here," said Ron Hampel, Butler County resident engineer for the Ohio Department of Transportation, who will be overseeing the $31 million, eight-mile widening of I-75 this summer. "We're not anticipating much of a slowdown, but we will be monitoring the situation to see how the traffic pattern performs."

Previously, highway officials said they would keep all three lanes open throughout the entire project, which will add an extra lane between Sharon Road in northern Hamilton County and Tylersville Road in southern Butler County.

Preliminary work already has begun on the project, and the lanes will close sometime this week.

The closure was announced Tuesday along with the rest of this summer's construction schedule, which also will include major work on Montgomery Road in the Kenwood area and the continuation of the expansion of the eastern side of I-275. In Kentucky, the refinishing of I-275 in Boone County also continues but could be completed by the summer.

There is another potential bottleneck coming on Interstate 471 in Northern Kentucky. The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet is planning to polish and paint the Daniel Carter Beard Bridge, and plans call for two of four lanes to be shut down in each direction. The project is scheduled to begin sometime this summer and end in the fall of next year.

But one of the worst bottlenecks in the Tristate could be the interchange of I-75 and I-275. I-75 already sees routine backups during rush hour in both directions, while traffic at the county line just south of I-275 has grown from 78,000 vehicles a day in 1994 to more than 126,000 daily in 2000.

Yet ODOT's traffic engineer Joe Bassil said preliminary studies show that most traffic heading into the interchange is either getting on or off I-275 and that three lanes will be open into and out of the exit. The actual lane closure will last less than a mile underneath the bypass itself.

"Two lanes should be enough to handle the through traffic," Bassil said. "But if it does become a bottleneck, we could add some temporary pavement and add a lane."

In addition, the Allen Road and West Chester Road bridges across I-75 will be closed for six months, with the Crescentville Road bridge to close for four months after those other spans reopen.

There will be some good news along that section, however. Those entering I-75 from I-275 will now have a dedicated lane, meaning that drivers will no longer need to merge into oncoming traffic, as is now the case.

ODOT also gave some good news to those on the east side of town. All four projects along the eastern side of I-275 between Ohio 32 and I-71 should be finished by the end of the fall.

And Ohio highway officials said they are close to finishing installing wire barriers along a stretch of I-75 that was the site of 11 fatalities as a result of crashes involving vehicles crossing over the median between October 2000 and December 2001.

ODOT transportation planner Jay Hamilton said the $1 million project should be completed by May and that the area is only the second place in the country to receive this particular safety system. The other is in Oklahoma City.

E-mail jpilcher@enquirer.com