TL:DR
WASHINGTON -
Ohio is examining ways to put underdeveloped parts of the state on the road to prosperity by constructing a new interstate highway.
It’s joining a ‘decades-long effort to create a new interstate highway that would connect Michigan to South Carolina, stitching together existing roadways and planned construction across six states into a transportation corridor that could reshape regional economic development.`
The Interstate 73-74-75 corridor would run nearly 1,000 miles from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. On the way, it would pass through Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina.
The Ohio section of the proposed highway would largely follow U.S. Route 23, running south from Toledo, through Columbus, and all the way to the Kentucky/West Virginia border near Chesapeake, Ohio.
The project aims to upgrade existing routes and connect bypasses into a seamless interstate system - pulling together scattered segments into a unified whole over years of coordinated effort.
The Ohio Department of Transportation is conducting a $1.5 million feasibility study on the project scheduled for completion by the end of 2026
. Its findings will help decide the project’s future, its allocation of state funding, and guide potential routes, ODOT says.U.S. Rep. Dave Taylor, whose district would be served by the highway, introduced a congressional resolution last month supporting construction of the Ohio’s portion.
A statement from Taylor said southern Ohio needs infrastructure to support businesses
like a growing uranium enrichment site in Piketon, and a defense technology company building an advanced manufacturing facility to make military drones and autonomous air vehicles in Pickaway County.
The Clermont County Republican said the new interstate would help workers in the region commute to work, and its growing industries transport their wares.
“An interstate through southern Ohio would not just help connect rural communities to the modern economy but would enhance our national security because of multiple key facilities and defense-related companies along the route,” Taylor said.
Taylor sought support for the project from Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy at a recent House Transportation Committee hearing, where Duffy said he’d be happy to discuss USDOT’s role with Taylor.
“We have too many communities that don’t have adequate infrastructure, and most of them are oftentimes rural,” Duffy said at the hearing.
Multi-State Coordination Spans Decades
Jimmy Gray, president of the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce and executive director of the I-73, I-74, I-75 Corridor
Association says the project has been discussed for almost 30 years.
Members of the group working to build the highway meet regularly with each other and their congressional representatives in six states to discuss their progress and strategize on ways to secure funding.
The corridor would connect major population centers and industrial hubs, from Michigan’s manufacturing base through Ohio’s defense and technology facilities to the tourism economy of the Carolinas, he says.
“If you look at these six states, they are states with a lot of residential and commercial growth,” says Gray.
He says communities that lack interstate highway access often lose out on economic growth opportunities because it’s a key factor companies look at when they decide where to build.
He regards the prospective highway as more of an economic development engine than a tourism enhancement, though he says Myrtle Beach would love for the highway to bring in more Ohio tourists.
He estimates the highway would cut the time it takes to drive from Ohio to Myrtle Beach by hours.
Each of the six states has designated portions of the route as priority corridors, but he says progress varies between them.
Gray says Michigan has made the most progress, with portions of Interstate 75 already serving the corridor’s northern terminus,
near the border with Ontario.He says South Carolina has completed permitting and environmental reviews for its segment and is “shovel ready,”
with permits approved by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and right-of-way purchased.“We’re just waiting on money,” says Gray. “That is the holdback.”
He says the funding challenges reflect broader changes in federal infrastructure investment,
with the U.S. government not pushing interstate highway construction as it did during the 1950s.
He says states are exploring creative financing mechanisms, including local sales taxes and federal grants, with federal agencies now typically looking for matching state and local investment.
“We deal at times with a chicken or the egg issue,” says Gray. “States don’t want to pledge state money until there’s federal money. The federal government doesn’t want to fund until they have state buy in.”
In South Carolina’s Horry County, where Myrtle Beach is located, voters approved a referendum dedicating $450 million toward Interstate 73 construction - about half the estimated $900 million cost for that segment, Gray says.
The approach leverages tourism revenue, as the area hosts nearly 18 million visitors annually. Gray noted an additional urgency: hurricane evacuation, describing the challenges of evacuating up to 700,000 people during peak season on existing two-lane roads.
Despite the years-long slog of constructing different segments of the highway across six states and stringing them together, Gray has faith the highway will eventually become reality because it would bring so much growth to the states it would serve.
“I remain confident it is a necessary project in each of these corridor states,” says Gray. “It is going to happen because it is a good project.”
Ohio’s Critical Missing Links
Organizations in northern and southern Ohio who seek the highway’s construction hope it will better link them with other parts of the state.
Toledo’s Tom Kovacik, executive director of the Transportation Advocacy Group of Northwest Ohio, has been working on Ohio’s portion for 25 years. He says the project would help eliminate bottlenecks that prevent free-flowing traffic between Toledo and Columbus.
A big priority is creating a bypass for a section of Route 23 in Delaware, Ohio, where 38 traffic lights in 20 miles impedes through traffic, Kovacik says.
“If you’re a trucking company trying to get from Toledo to Columbus, you’re stuck in a 20-mile stretch with nearly 40 red lights,” Kovacik said. “That’s not an expressway—it’s a logistical nightmare.”
He says the planned bypass would connect Route 23 directly to Interstate 71 north of Columbus, eliminating the congested passage through Delaware entirely.
Kovacik said ODOT is currently investigating multiple possible routes for the bypass, looking at different ways to connect the two highways.
He estimates any one of them would probably cost hundreds of millions of dollars, but believes it would be worth it to provide a better route for goods between Columbus and Toledo.
The route improvements are exponentially important for Ohio, Kovacik said, given the concentration of industry and distribution centers in and around Columbus, plus major transportation intersections in the Toledo area, where Interstate 75 and the Ohio Turnpike cross.
“A lot of these distribution centers locating in Ohio, a lot in Columbus,” he says. “We just got a new Intel factory. That is just outside Columbus. The route from Columbus to Northwest Ohio is critical.”
Once the Delaware bypass is completed, Kovacik said he will have accomplished his goal of ensuring a direct route from Myrtle Beach to Mackinaw, Michigan. “I will be one of the first people on that bypass,” he said.
Rural Ohio’s Economic Imperative
Darren LeBrun, Scioto County engineer, described his part of southern Ohio as caught in a “black hole,” with a lack of interstate connections that hampers economic development. The region sits surrounded by Interstates 71, 70, and 77 but lacks direct connections.
“Portsmouth is a rust belt town built on manufacturing,” LeBrun says. “Whenever developers come in to put in a factory or big development, if interstate access isn’t there, they keep looking and we’re not considered. It is a handicap for us.”
He likens the completed interstate to a “heart stent” that would allow an easy path between Interstates 270 and 64, providing his region with easy access to both roads.
Because of a lack of local employment that he hopes an interstate highway might remedy, he said a significant proportion of his county’s residents commute to Columbus daily, facing 90 minutes to two hours of driving each way.
An interstate corridor could reduce that commute by at least 30 minutes while improving safety, he estimates.
LeBrun acknowledged the project would require phased construction over many years due to its massive scope and cost. The ODOT feasibility study will determine preferred alignments and associated costs for each option, providing the technical foundation needed to secure future funding.
“The big thing is to get the plan upfront, and then you can build it in pieces,” he said, comparing the approach to North Carolina’s Interstate 74, which took more than 20 years to complete.
He expects it would be built as a series of bypasses of congested areas that would eventually be linked together. Some segments are already in place, such as the Veterans Memorial Highway bypass around Portsmouth.
“These communities were once home to thriving steel mills and shoe factories,” says LeBrun. “We have able-bodied people, we have rail, we have Ohio River access—we just don’t have the interstate. That’s the piece that’s been missing.”
My Thoughts 💭
I wish the us government would support a project such as this. America runs on trucking and the construction of major road way can lead to massive benefits to the overall American economy and possibly unlock new land for the development of residential homes. The US government has had the political will to do such a massive infrastructure project since the 1950s but they have massive buckets of fiat for the stupid golden dome and semiconductor construction when the companies that operate them already have trillion dollar valuations!!
If I was were the treasurer for these 6 states I would set up a bitcoin fund stack bitcoin for 5 years with tax payer money and then start capital investment in the planning and design of this massive project.