(WKBN / WCMH) – As Ohio reopens, the Ohio Department of Transportation says traffic levels are increasing slightly across the state.
This comes after dropping dramatically during the shutdown, which hurt ODOT’s funding.
The state gas tax went up 10.5 cents a gallon last July. During the shutdown in April, traffic dropped to a low of 49%.
That means less gas was purchased and there’s less funding for ODOT.
“We have been looking at the projects in the books and saying what are immediate needs, and what are things that we could wait for and trying to prioritize those projects?” said Matt Bruning from ODOT.
The decline in drivers did help ODOT in some ways, however. It allowed work normally done at night to get done during the day.
ODOT expects traffic levels to continue to rise.