FORT WAYNE, Ind. — The summer’s hot, dry weather wasn’t kind to farmers and homeowners, but it may help a major road project be completed earlier than expected.

The Indiana portion of the Fort to Port project, designed to connect Fort Wayne with Toledo, Ohio, is on schedule to meet its contractual completion date of Dec. 1. This is according to Mary Foster, media relations director for the Fort Wayne district of the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT).

Officials are hoping, though, the highway might be completed ahead of schedule. “The weather hasn’t hurt the schedule at all,” Foster noted. “They’ve been able to remain on schedule or maybe be slightly ahead.”

Meanwhile, the final Ohio phase of the project has been completed, as the roadway between Napoleon and Waterville opened the last week of August.

“It’s been quite the dry year, which hurts a lot of folks, including farmers, and lawns, but it does allow contractors to be out working most of the time,” said Will Wingfield, an INDOT spokesman.

The Fort to Port project straightens, widens and realigns U.S. Highway 24 from just east of Fort Wayne to Toledo. Nearly 60 miles of new four-lane highway have been constructed in Ohio from the Indiana line to Toledo, while in Indiana, 11.2 miles of U.S. 24 were improved.

Motorists traveling east from Fort Wayne will find a safer road once the entire project is completed, Foster said.

“They’ve taken a windy, curvy, two-lane road and made it into a four-lane divided highway,” she explained. “They’ve taken it away from residences and driveways to more isolated areas. It’s safer for all those people living along 24.”

The project creates an expressway connecting many points in both directions and allows for easier access to the Ohio Turnpike for those heading east, Wingfield said.

“Fort to Port is a four-lane divided highway with limited access at specific points,” he noted. “It provides a lot of opportunity. It’s exciting, from our perspective. We’re eager to see what happens in the business community as they move to take advantage of the new infrastructure.”

The Indiana section of new roadway from Fort Wayne to the Ohio line will cost $112 million, Foster said. The Ohio portion of the project was expected to cost more than $400 million, Ohio Department of Transportation officials have said.

Indiana is also in the midst of the Hoosier Heartland Corridor project, which will connect Lafayette to Fort Wayne, a 99-mile route, via a four-lane divided highway. U.S. 24 from Logansport to Fort Wayne has been widened in stages over the years, and 36 miles of Indiana 25 are being rebuilt or realigned in two sections.

The road from Interstate 65 to U.S. 421 at Delphi will open this year, Wingfield said. The section from U.S. 421 to U.S. 24 at Logansport will open next year. Work started on the Hoosier Heartland project in 2008. The cost for the Lafayette-Logansport section is $415 million, Wingfield noted.

“The Hoosier Heartland and Fort to Port projects provide access for getting goods to market, and that’s an important part of the project,” Wingfield explained. “It will help the business community and with economic development by increasing marketability. It’s important to the rural communities.”