Updated: July 30, 2026
Earlier this month, my husband and I made the trek down to Surfside Beach, South Carolina. It was 10+ hours, an upsetting amount of McDonald’s Diet Cokes, and about 4 different podcasts. If you’ve ever made the trip from Central Ohio down to the Myrtle Beach area, you know it’s a long one, with more than a few stretches that feel like they were designed to test your patience.
Now imagine shaving hours off the drive, and fixing some of the most frustrating traffic choke points in Ohio at the same time. That’s the promise (or at least the pitch) behind the proposed Interstate 73-74-75 corridor, a nearly 1,000-mile project that’s been in the works, on paper at least, for decades.
The highway would run from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula all the way to Myrtle Beach, following a path through Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina before hitting the South Carolina coast.
Ohio’s piece would mostly follow U.S. 23, from Toledo, through Columbus, down to the southern tip of the state, but with some big upgrades. In Delaware County, that could mean finally bypassing the 20-mile stretch of U.S. 23 with nearly 40 stoplights. (If you’ve ever tried to make a straight shot from Columbus to Toledo, you know exactly how painful that is.)
Update: ODOT just picked a route for the first big piece.
On July 30, ODOT released its preferred route for a new connector highway between U.S. 23 and I-71 north of the metro. The route leaves U.S. 23 just north of Waldo, cuts through Marion and Morrow counties, crosses U.S. 42 north of the Village of Ashley, then turns south along the Delaware County line before meeting I-71 just south of State Route 521.
To be clear, the connector is its own project, born out of Delaware County’s U.S. 23 congestion. It’s not an official piece of I-73. But it targets the exact stretch that makes the corridor pitch so painful, and any future interstate along U.S. 23 would lean on it. ODOT picked the route from five finalists it floated in February, after more than 2,000 public comments.
There’s still time to weigh in. ODOT is hosting open houses in August and taking comments through September 1 on the study website, where you can also check whether the route touches your property. The final feasibility study goes to the Ohio General Assembly by October 1, and lawmakers decide what happens next.
Supporters say it’s not just about vacation traffic.
Rural communities in southern Ohio see it as a lifeline for economic development. Leaders in Pickaway and Scioto counties point to new manufacturing projects, defense companies, and an aging road network that makes attracting new jobs nearly impossible. For them, the interstate isn’t just convenient, it’s survival.
But this is not a shovel-in-the-ground situation yet. ODOT is spending $1.5 million on an I-73 feasibility study, with a final report due to lawmakers by the end of 2026. The whole project would require coordinated construction and funding from six states, plus federal buy-in.
South Carolina has its segment “shovel-ready” and even passed a local sales tax to help pay for it. Ohio? We’re still figuring out the details.
So for now, Myrtle Beach is still 10-ish hours away. But if the stars, the budgets, and the traffic engineers all align, one day your beach playlist might not have to last quite so long.
