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Wooster Street work to ease for student move-in BOWLING GREEN, O.—It’s been more like a maze than a main road this summer, but East Wooster Street will be ready for the arrival
of several thousand Bowling Green State University students for the start of fall semester.
The completion date for the $6 million street-widening project is next August, and while the work will be ongoing, Alumni
Drive, South College Drive and Thurstin Avenue—which have been closed for work at their intersections with East Wooster—have
reopened.
Alumni Drive is being widened and paved just north of the East Wooster Street intersection. Installation of conduit is also
part of the project, as is curb and gutter work. The drive will be open through Sunday (Aug. 22), but once BGSU classes begin
the next day, the intersection will be closed periodically for additional work.
Utility poles and services are being moved at East Wooster and South College Drive to accommodate the road widening. The work
has closed both the intersection and the adjacent parking lot at BGSU’s Popular Culture Center. Pedestrian access to the building
has been maintained via a temporary sidewalk installed from East Wooster to the front door.
The portion of Thurstin Avenue between East Wooster and Court streets was closed Aug. 9-17 for reconstruction of the roadway.
Utilities are also being relocated where Thurstin and Manville Avenue meet East Wooster.
At Mercer Road, where the right southbound lane has been closed this summer for widening work, worker safety and construction
vehicle access, all lanes will be open for student move-in.
University drives along East Wooster will also be open as students come to campus for fall semester. That includes the center
“Fraternity Row” and east Conklin drives, and the front drive at Founders Hall. The entrances to the McFall Center parking
lot and lots A and D will be open as well, along with the Founders loading dock, Lot 11 (west of Founders), the Harshman Quadrangle
east parking lot and Stadium Drive.
Kokosing Construction, the project contractor, is planning to substantially reduce its operations today and Friday (Aug. 19
and 20) to help with the flow of traffic.
East Wooster is being widened to five lanes from Interstate 75 to Mercer Road, and Kokosing hopes to have that stretch of
road opened for BGSU’s first home football game, on Sept. 11. “They are on course to do that,” said Joe Rutherford, District
Two spokesman for the Ohio Department of Transportation, which is overseeing the project.
From Mercer west to Enterprise Street, the project entails widening and rebuilding three full lanes of East Wooster.
Weekly project updates can be found on the Web at
www.bgsu.edu/offices/pr/wooster/daily_update.html.
(Posted August 19, 2004 )
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