OHIO Turnpike plaza work scaled down

The remaining plazas, including one in Mahoning County, will be smaller.
TOLEDO (AP) -- Now that half of the new travel plazas along the Ohio Turnpike are open, toll road officials have decided to scale down the size of the plazas yet to be finished.
The eight plazas to be rebuilt also may have fewer restaurants.
The main reason is that those plazas are in sections of the highway with less traffic, turnpike spokeswoman Lauren Dehrmann said.
"They'll still be larger than the ones currently there," she said Monday.
Six years ago, the turnpike set out on a project to renovate all 16 plazas and widen the interstate to three lanes in each direction along 160 miles of the 241-mile route across northern Ohio.
Most of the widening has been completed -- 136 miles at the end of last year.
The project is being financed by an 82 percent toll increase.
Initially, turnpike officials expected the plazas to be finished in three years. But then they decided to work on only one plaza at a time, delaying the timetable for finishing.
Plaza features
The new plazas have sit-down restaurants, more restrooms, lounges, game rooms and more food choices. They are designed to give travelers more comfort and increase use of the turnpike.
When announced, the travel plaza renovation was projected to cost $126 million, but within a year that figure had climbed to $150 million.
The first eight have been completed at a cost of $87 million.
Construction and land costs have been more than expected, but that is not why the other plazas are being downsized, Dehrmann said.
Taking another look
Construction on the plazas came to a halt last summer and none are being built this year to give turnpike leaders a chance to evaluate how the others should be built, Dehrmann said.
"There isn't any rush," she said. "We want to do it right."
The next plazas to be rebuilt are in Ottawa County. Work there is to begin in 2004 and finish in 2005.
The other plazas yet to be completed are in Williams, Lucas and Mahoning counties.
Those plazas will have two or three food choices but might not have sit-down restaurants such as Max & amp; Erma's or Panera Bread, which are at some of the rebuilt plazas.
"They will be similar in layout but smaller," Dehrmann said.