West end: US 24 near Antwerp Length 134.1 km | East end: US 24 in Toledo | |
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Counties Paulding County, Ohio, Defiance County, Ohio, Henry County, Ohio, Lucas County, Ohio | ||
U.S. Route 24 (US 24) is a United States Numbered Highway that runs from Minturn, Colorado, to Independence Township, Michigan. In Ohio, it is a limited-access route for much of its length, from the Ohio-Indiana border to Maumee. From there northeasterly to the Michigan-Ohio border in Toledo, it is a surface highway.
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Route description
From the Indiana state line easterly to Interstate 475 (I-475) in the city of Maumee, US 24 is a limited-access divided highway which mostly has interchanges, but features intersections with select county roads. The route continues northeasterly through downtown Maumee and the western side of Toledo, continuing to the Michigan–Ohio border. At this point, the route continues northerly into Michigan as a north-south highway.
History
Upgrades to the route around Napoleon began in 2008. This included the construction of a new route from east of Napoleon to north of Waterville, bypassing the original routing of the highway. This rerouting was done to " alleviate safety concerns caused by the mixture of truck traffic and residential travel" along US 24's former routing. New alignments west of Defiance through to Interstate 469 in Fort Wayne, Indiana were also built in the late 2000s. The conversion to an expresway, first proposed in 1969, was made due to the high number of road accidents along the old alignment, which comprised only two lanes and was frequently used by tractor trailers.