House Bill 54, which DeWine signed late Monday without any line-item vetoes, will also require Ohioans to prove U.S. citizenship before registering to vote at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, revoke a $3.5 million state grant to a downtown Cleveland project headed by developer Bobby George, ban all Ohio counties and townships from operating traffic-camera programs, loosen a rail safety measure passed after the 2023 East Palestine train derailment, and give a pay raise for one of House Speaker Matt Huffman’s top lieutenants.
Those policy changes, which take effect in 90 days, are in addition to the main purpose of the transportation budget, which is to provide money for road and highway projects around the state for the next two years.
STRONGSVILLE-BRUNSWICK INTERCHANGE
The new budget repeals language inserted in the state’s last transportation budget mandating that the Ohio Department of Transportation build an interchange connecting I-71 and Boston Road.
For years, the city of Strongsville has been seeking to build a new highway interchange along Interstate 71 south of State Route 82, which has become increasingly clogged with traffic. Particularly, they’ve eyed building the interchange at Boston Road, on the border between Strongsville and the city of Brunswick.
Brunswick city officials and residents have denounced the idea, saying a Boston Road interchange will lower nearby property values, destroy homes in the path of on- and off-ramps, and turn a residential road into an unwanted commercial corridor.
In place of the interchange requirement, the new transportation budget requires ODOT and the Northeast Ohio Area Coordinating Agency to develop a plan on the best way to reduce traffic problems in the area by the end of 2026.
NOACA authorized nearly $1 million to conduct such a study last fall, which would review whether the most prudent place to build an interchange would be at Boston Road or potential alternatives between Pearl Road (U.S. Route 42) to the north and state Route 303 to the south.
MOTOR-VOTER PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP
Ohioans will soon be required to show proof of U.S. citizenship before registering to vote at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, thanks to the new budget.
The idea stemmed from a report issued in May 2024 by Secretary of State Frank LaRose, which found that 137 Ohioans had active voter registrations despite twice notifying the BMV that they were not citizens (and therefore are ineligible to vote).
LaRose, a Columbus-area Republican, suggested at the time that many of those cases involved non-English speakers who submitted voter-registration forms in error.
It’s relatively rare for non-citizens to register to vote in Ohio, much less cast a ballot. Last year, LaRose’s office found 597 non-citizens who were registered to vote, composing 0.0073% of Ohio’s 8.2 million registered voters. After LaRose’s report last year, Attorney General Dave Yost indicted six people for voting illegally – but one of them turned out to be dead.
AID FOR FLATS PROJECT CANCELED
The new transportation budget revokes $3.5 million in state assistance that lawmakers offered last year to George’s plan to build a three-building restaurant and entertainment complex on the east bank of the Flats, near the mouth of the Cuyahoga River.
Senate GOP spokesman John Fortney said last month that the decision stemmed from George being charged last August in Cleveland Municipal Court with several domestic violence-related crimes involving a woman, including attempted murder, rape, and kidnapping. The case was bound over to a Cuyahoga County grand jury, but a special prosecutor has yet to bring an indictment.
George replied at the time that he will get his money “one way or another, and the project will move forward and be better than ever. ...I am looking forward to giving these losers a spanking if I need to.”
COUNTY/TOWNSHIP TRAFFIC-CAMERA BAN
Ohio counties and townships will no longer be allowed to operate traffic-camera programs, under Senate-added language to the transportation budget.
It’s state lawmakers’ latest salvo in their years-long effort to rein in the use of traffic cameras, once used by dozens of local governments around the state to catch and ticket motorists for violations such as speeding or running a red light.
Use of traffic cameras in Ohio has particularly dropped off since the legislature passed a 2015 law forbidding local authorities from issuing traffic-camera tickets unless a law-enforcement officer is stationed near each camera.
It’s not immediately clear how many Ohio counties have active traffic-camera programs.
Nine counties deduct money from their share of state funding for local governments to offset revenue from traffic-cameras fines, according to the association: Brown, Columbiana, Cuyahoga, Franklin, Huron, Lucas, Montgomery, Summit, and Trumbull counties. However, counties also have to make such deductions if cities or other local governments within them operate camera programs.
Cuyahoga County currently has 250 license-plate reader cameras deployed at 78 locations, as well as four mobile trailer cameras, but all are used solely for law-enforcement purposes and don’t generate any revenue.
Only three townships in Ohio currently have traffic-camera programs, all of which are in Trumbull County: Liberty Township, Vienna Township and Weathersfield Township, according to Kyle Brooks, director of government affairs for the Ohio Township Association.
PAY RAISE FOR HOUSE GOP LAWMAKER
Shortly before passing the transportation budget last month, lawmakers inserted language boosting House Assistant Speaker Pro Tempore Phil Plummer’s legislative salary to $99,903 per year.
Plummer, a Dayton Republican, earned just shy of $79,000 for his legislative work, according to state salary data. But after Huffman was elected speaker last fall, he rewarded Plummer – one of the main antagonists to state Rep. Jason Stephens, whom Huffman replaced as speaker – with the newly created leadership post.
Huffman previously told reporters that since state law doesn’t lay out how much a House assistant speaker pro tempore should be paid, lawmakers moved to fix that in the transportation budget.
RAILROAD SAFETY REQUIREMENTS
The transportation budget loosens recently adopted state requirements for smaller railroads to install wayside detectors along every 10-15 miles of track. It was one of a number of rail safety reforms that lawmakers passed in response to the release of toxic chemicals from a Feb. 3, 2023, train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.
Wayside detectors use cameras and sensors to catch malfunctioning or broken equipment on passing trains before incidents happen. Under language added to state law via the 2023 transportation budget, anyone who receives a message regarding a wayside detector defect has to immediately notify the operator of a train passing along it.
Under the new transportation budget, large Class I railroads like Norfolk Southern – the railroad that operated the train that derailed in East Palestine – still have to follow existing requirements to set up wayside detectors along every 10 miles of track (or up to 15 miles if the terrain is unsuitable).
But smaller Class II and Class III railroads now only have to install detectors every 25 miles and 35 miles, respectively. Class II railroads are regional railroads or branch lines, while Class III railroads include “short lines” that are often spur tracks connecting industrial facilities to main-line railroads.
The budget also lifts the wayside detector requirement entirely for stretches of railroad track where the speed limit is 10 miles per hour or less. That affects many Class III railroads, which have a speed limit of 10 mph for freight trains.
Smaller railroads have argued that wayside detectors — which each can cost $200,000 or more – are prohibitively expensive for them to install, even though the state provided $10 million in grants to help them cover the cost. The railroads also argue they don’t need more wayside detectors because their trains move relatively short distances at low speeds.
Other parts of the transportation budget bill will:
- Expand the jurisdiction of RTA police officers
- Protect rental car drivers from receiving a ticket if their rental vehicle’s registration is expired.
- Allow truckers to stop and park on the ramps to rest areas even when the rest areas are closed.
