Mission

During the next decade, the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) is planning to build more than 650 miles of new and expanded interstate and rural highway construction at a cost of at least $4.5 billion. Figure 1 below illustrates the major road corridors that ODOT has targeted for expansion, primarily through construction of four- or six-lane highways. 

Many of these projects will cut through prime farmland, forest, streams and other natural resources and wildlife habitat.  ODOT’s road expansions also will fuel sprawl and other unplanned, haphazard development, known as “induced demand,” especially around metropolitan areas.

 

ODOT is largely evading required environmental reviews of its road expansion program by “segmenting” many projects into small pieces.  Since shorter projects usually have fewer “significant environmental impacts,” which is the threshold for detailed environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), dividing large road projects into shorter pieces reduces the “significance” of the impacts, and therefore the need for the environmental review.  In other words, segmentation distorts the transportation planning process by fragmenting statewide and regional transportation issues into artificially smaller pieces, and masking the true environmental consequences of larger projects.

ODOT’s systematic avoidance of NEPA has serious negative environmental and transportation planning consequences.  Farmland, forest, wetlands, wildlife habitat and other irreplaceable natural areas suffer greater losses.  Fragmented planning leads to poor long-term transportation decision-making.  And new road construction becomes the default choice, even though other alternatives – such as regional passenger rail -- often offer better, more cost-effective solutions for the State.  ODOT’s segmentation policy ultimately consumes more farmland and forest, creates more sprawl, and results in weaker long-term planning than otherwise would occur with systemic environmental review under NEPA.

Read Breaking the Heart of It All: How ODOT subverts the NEPA Environmental Review Process and Damages Ohio's Environment and Communities. October 14, 2002.