Ohio State Route 32
State Route 32, also known as SR 32 and the James A. Rhodes Appalachian Highway, is a major east–west highway across the southern portion of the U.S. state of Ohio. It is the eighth longest state route in Ohio. It leads from eastern Cincinnati, near the border between the neighborhoods of Linwood, Mount Lookout, and Columbia-Tusculum, to the Parkersburg-Belpre Bridge across the Ohio River in Belpre. Except in Belpre, leading up to the bridge into West Virginia, the entire route outside Cincinnati's beltway is a high-speed four-lane divided highway, forming the Ohio portion of Corridor D of the Appalachian Development Highway System. This corridor continues east across the Ohio River over the Blennerhassett Island Bridge.
History
The Batavia Turnpike and Miami Bridge Company was incorporated and chartered by the state of Ohio. It built a road, which was "about finished" as of 1841, beginning at the Wooster Turnpike, crossing the Little Miami River on the Union Bridge, and turning east to Batavia. The Ohio Turnpike to Bethel split after the Little Miami was crossed.The passage of the McGuire Bill in 1911 led to the designation of a large number of Inter-County Highways to be maintained by the Ohio Department of Highways. This network included the Cincinnati-Batavia Road and Batavia-Winchester Road, connecting Cincinnati to Batavia, Williamsburg, Mt. Orab, Sardinia, Winchester, and beyond to an intersection with the West Union-Belfast Road south of Seaman. This entire route from Cincinnati to south of Seaman was designated and signed as State Route 74 in 1923. The route left downtown Cincinnati on Eastern Avenue, shared with State Route 7 and State Route 25. SR 7 left at Davis Lane, while SR 25 and SR 74 turned onto Beechmont Avenue, splitting after crossing the Little Miami River. By 1925, the east end of SR 74 had been realigned and extended, heading east from Winchester through Seaman and continuing through Peebles to State Route 73 northwest of Rarden; the old alignment reverted to local control. Along with U.S. Route 50, US 52, and SR 125, SR 74 was moved to Columbia Parkway in the early 1940s, and in the early 1950s it was removed from downtown Cincinnati to its present terminus. Due to the existence of Interstate 74 west of Cincinnati, the number was changed to State Route 32 in 1962, with SR 74 signs being removed in June 1963 after a period of dual signage. The designation had originally been applied to a route running from the Indiana border west of Celina to Marysville; in 1938 it was replaced by U.S. Route 33 east of St. Marys, and a rerouted State Route 54, later State Route 29, to the west.
The state relocated the road between Mount Carmel and Batavia as a four-lane divided highway in the early 1960s, several years after the parallel State Route 125 was widened. Because this was done before or during the renumbering, the old road here is known as Old State Route 74, rather than Old State Route 32 to the east. Improvement of the rest of the road did not take place until after it was added to the Appalachian Development Highway System in 1965. This proposed Appalachian Highway—part of Corridor D—was to run across the southern part of the state from Interstate 275 outside Cincinnati to Belpre. From the east end of SR 32 east of Peebles, the route was to continue northeast, joining State Route 772 near Elmgrove, and following State Route 124 beyond Jackson to Roads. After continuing northeast to Radcliff, it would parallel State Route 346 and a portion of State Route 143, merging with U.S. Route 50 west of Albany and following it past Athens and Coolville to Belpre. A never-built branch, planned as part of Corridor B, would have followed State Route 73 and State Route 348 from east of Peebles to Lucasville on U.S. Route 23.
In 1998, the Ohio Department of Transportation inspected a section of SR 32 in Jackson County due to repeated pavement failure and pothole subsidence featured in the median. Abandoned underground mines were visible near the roadway, but there were no mine maps available for the area. An electrical resistivity tomography was conducted to see if there were mine voids underneath the roadway. Several pits at deep were excavated revealing that mine voids were detected. In response to the tests, ODOT closed the highway east of Wellston and began excavating the roadway to remediate the mine subsidence in November 1998. Work to repair the roadway was completed in March 1999.
In 2002, two interchanges were constructed along SR 32. Olive Branch–Stonelick Road intersection in Clermont County was constructed into an interchange. The $7 million project was jointly funded by Clermont County and ODOT's Transportation Review Advisory Council. The interchange project was awarded the Donald C. Schramm Award by the American Society of Highway Engineers Triko Valley Section in 2002. Work also began on replacing two at-grade intersections of SRs 124 and 327 into a single interchange near Wellston in Jackson County. The $9 million project was funded jointly by the Federal Highway Safety Infrastructure program and ODOT's Highway Safety Program. The project was completed in July 2004 at cost of $12.5 million, an increase of $3.5 million than originally estimated.
Future
The portion of SR 32 in Clermont, Brown, Highland, Adams, and Pike counties is under consideration as the eastward continuation of Interstate 74 from Cincinnati to Piketon, where it would connect with Interstate 73. This would necessitate replacing at-grade crossings with either limited access interchanges or totally eliminating access.A construction project that is a part of the Eastern Corridor, is redesigning SR 32 from Interstate 275 to Batavia. This segment of construction began in 2012. The plan is to remove all signalized intersections east of Interstate 275 and eventually replace it with a limited-access highway to Batavia. Funding for the final segments, which call for the construction of interchanges at Glen Este-Withamsville and Bach-Buxton Roads, amounts to $83.1 million. The project funding was awarded in November 2019 with construction beginning in 2021.
A feasibility study is underway at the Brooks-Malott Road intersection in Mt. Orab. The study calls for the construction of an interchange.