“Right now,” said ODOT District 11 Manager Jerry Campbell, “we’ve got a tanker out to pre-treat our bridges and our four-lane areas of 70 and they’re being pre-treated and grinding salt before the storm, and we’re monitoring the storm. We have all of our trucks in the garage ready. We have a lot of salt, and people are scheduled to arrive at midnight.”
While truck drivers work to clear roads, officials say it’s important to give them space.
“One thing we want to remind people is to give our trucks enough room to work out there,” said Lauren Borel, public information officer for ODOT District 11. “Those trucks are very big, and they’re there to work and keep the roads safe for you. And it’s very important not only for your safety but for their safety that you’re giving them plenty of room to work.”
If you feel like you haven’t seen a snow removal machine in a while, officials want to remind people that these trucks cover large areas, and they’re working as quickly as possible to clear roads many miles long.
“One thing we often hear from people is that they haven’t seen a truck for several hours,” Borrell said. “You know the road hasn’t been plowed and it hasn’t been touched, and we want to remind people that our trucks travel an average of 35 to 37 miles per route, so in an hour’s time, you know, they’re getting, you know, one end of their route to the other end, you know, while traveling well below the posted speed limit.”
For real-time traffic updates during the winter season, Borrell recommends using ohgo.com, which is also available online and as an app.
“You can get traffic updates in real time, you can see what the travel speeds are there. You can also look at the hundreds of cameras we have across the state of Ohio. We’ve got sidewalk conditions there too,” Borrell said.
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