ALLEN COUNTY, Ohio (WLIO) - ODOT District 1 will be both adding and losing counties in its coverage area over the coming months.
Auglaize County and Mercer County, which both are currently in ODOT District 7, will move into District 1. Defiance county will leave District 1 and enter District 2. With the shift, District 1 will be nearly adding an additional 600 miles of lanes, 1,400 culverts, and 170 bridges to cover with a capital program six-year average increase of $7 million.
ODOT officials say the realignment is a good geographical fit for Lima-based District 1.
"With ODOT District 1 Mercer and Auglaize Counties, [they have] very similar geography, very similar population, and it's going to be a good fit for a lot of our district-wide maintenance activities that we do, and we know these communities, a lot of our employees live and work near them," said Chris Hughes, deputy director for ODOT District 1. "It's just going to be a good opportunity for us to be able to serve those communities a little bit better."
During the transition process, Hughes says that District 7 will likely complete any projects that they have started in Auglaize and Mercer Counties.
"Some of these are going to be handled by a case by case basis, but in general, those projects that have been started with District 7 are going to remain with District 7, and then as new projects come online, that's when our ODOT District 1 team will kind of take those new projects from this time that they begin, and we'll carry those through at that point," said Hughes.
The transition will happen in early April with District 1 serving Allen, Auglaize, Hancock, Hardin, Mercer, Paulding, Putnam, Van Wert, and Wyandot Counties.
