Study: 5 of Worst U.S. Truck-Congested Areas Are in Ohio

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Five of the country’s 100 worst congested areas for trucks are in the state of Ohio, and three of those areas are in Cincinnati, according to a study.

The American Transportation Research Institute has ranked Interstate 71 at I-75 junction north of the Brent Spence Bridge as No. 5, the highest Ohio area with truck-traffic bottlenecks on the organization’s list.

Two other areas in Cincinnati are listed as No. 35 and No. 84, respectively: The I-75 at I-74 interchange and the I-75/I-71 interchange at Interstate 275.

The I-71/I-70 interchange in Columbus is listed as No. 67. Interstate 75 at U.S. Route 35 in Dayton is No. 50.

Higher levels of distracted driving and poor driving habits are among reasons for Ohio’s presence on the list, Tom Balzer, president and chief executive of the Ohio Trucking Association, and others told the Hamilton-Middletown Journal-News.

“That’s the thing about traffic,” Balzer said. “It’s all a chain reaction.”

The problem requires attention to not just infrastructure, but to highways in particular and expanding those roads whenever possible, Balzer said.

Butler County Commissioner T.C. Rodgers, who will serve as president of the Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Government for 2017, has told the newspaper that his goal is to get funding for the project to replace the Brent Spence Bridge.

The bridge connecting Cincinnati and northern Kentucky is considered functionally obsolete, but there’s been disagreement on how to fund an estimated $2.6 billion project.