US 30 between Canton (Trump Ave. SE) and the OH 11 freeway should have been built as a expressway/freeway long ago. It has terminated at Trump Ave. since the mid 80's, with no progress since then. The short freeway extension to OH 44 is a start (and hopefully not a finish). Given that the Canton-OH 11 corridor has been studied numerous times over the last 30+ years, was it funding that prevented construction, or has there been widespread public opposition to completing the US 30 Expressway along this corridor?
The extension to Trump Avenue opened in the mid-1990s.
US 30 hasn't been upgraded east of East Canton because there's not much traffic. East of Minerva, counts are around 3000 VPD. Through traffic largely uses I-76 to the north or US 22 to the south. Not that many people are interested in going between Canton and East Liverpool, and US 30 is very slow with no likelihood of upgrades once you cross into Pennsylvania for traffic continuing towards Pittsburgh.
This is why I was surprised US-30 is this way. I assumed there would be a larger degree of Canton-Pittsburgh traffic.
Unless one thinks that it is a "build it and it come" approach, meaning the VPD is low becuase its such an old & slow routing.
Through traffic between East Canton and Lisbon right now pretty much splits between US 30 and SR 172. US 30 has somewhat better road geometrics, but SR 172 doesn't go through any towns of any significance to slow you down. A new US 30 would theoretically pull some traffic from both.
Even if you upgrade US 30 over to SR 11, you still have the part in Pennsylvania to deal with. It's up, down and around with a lot of 35mph and other reduced speed zones. You basically average 40mph for about 30 miles. You can shave off a couple minutes if you leave US 30 and take Moon-Clinton Road over to I-376, but it's still a slog and Pennsylvania isn't going to do any upgrades.
If Ohio is going to upgrade a route over to SR 11, I would suggest focusing on US 62. Completing the Alliance and Salem bypasses and building a new interchange at SR 11 and SR 14 would IMHO have more utility than an upgraded US 30.