BOWLING GREEN (Thursday, April 19, 2012) –Designed to provide more direct highway access, improve safety and promote economic development, the Ohio Department of Transportation District Two, on Thursday, announced the award of the State Route 18 relocation project in Wood County.

R D Jones Excavating Inc., of Harrod, Ohio, has been awarded the contract that will construct the 2.2 mile relocation of State Route 18.

The project bid was $5,803,779.18 or 13.76% lower than the engineer’s estimate of $6,730,000.00. Work will begin in May, and the project’s tentative completion date is December 2012.

The current State Route18 passes through the center of the Village of North Baltimore. This not only increases safety risks to residents but also slows freight access to Interstate 75.

The new alignment of State Route 18 will start at Liberty Hi Road and follow a curve between SR 18 and Belmore Road and reconnect at SR 18 and Main Street with a roundabout.

“We recognize that North Baltimore has huge logistics potential,” said ODOT Director Jerry Wray. “Being able to develop this route into a safe, efficient roadway, as quickly as possible, is vital to the region’s economic growth.”

Designed to streamline the process of planning, designing and building Ohio’s critical transportation infrastructure needs, ODOT considers the SR 18 relocation a pilot project in an evolving Project Development Process (PDP).