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The Ohio Department of Transportation held a Stakeholder Meeting Announcement last night at the Lincoln Theatre to provide an update on the I-70/71 “Split Fix” Project. Most of the major components of the project remained unchanged from announcements that took place in January, but some new details were provided regarding the I-670-style design of the highway trenches, the new feeder streets, and the beautification and streetscaping efforts.
The Q&A/Feedback session that followed the presentation revealed that few people seemed happy with the project at all.
Some folks questioned the methods behind deciding which portions of the streets would get trees, while others expressed displeasure about the lack of highway caps that had been promised by ODOT earlier in the project’s lifespan. ODOT officials were quick to state that the new retaining walls would be constructed for highway cap development in the future if funds were to become available, and added that the greenspaces, trees, and other beautification efforts were not completely finalized at this point in time.
The first phase of the project is slated to begin sometime in 2010 with work starting along I-71 between I-670 and Spring Street. ODOT officials said that community involvement would be an ongoing process and that new design standards could be worked out with the City of Columbus.
Attendees of the meeting were sent home with comment/feedback forms seeking input on the design standards being introduced at the meeting. For anyone else interested in supplying additional feedback to ODOT, the comments forms are being sent to Ferzan Ahmed, Project Manager, ODOT District 6, 400 E. William Street, Delaware, OH, 43015 – Phone: 740-833-8367 – Fax: 740-887-4605 – email: Ferzan.Ahmed@dot.state.oh.us.
@Urbanboi
“Are they going to make an even wider gap by tearing down buidlings or work with the space they have?”
Last I heard they were going to have to knockdown a descent amount of the buildings on Parsons Ave around Carabar and ET Paul.
futureman Says: Last I heard they were going to have to knockdown a descent amount of the buildings on Parsons Ave around Carabar and ET Paul.
No, just those two. I believe those are the only buildings that will be lost for this project, although there will probably be a few snippets of land here and there that come from the Public Health Department’s front lawn, some land by the Africentric School, and bits of Dodge Park & the Audubon.
I asked Ferzan what, if any, improvements will be made to this project after the feedback they have received after the past presentation and the email I posted was his response. Was he just trying to tell me what I wanted to hear?
I can’t believe you’d do a project for $1.6 billion in the capital city of a state and not have it be first rate. Talk about pennywise, pound foolish.
Really Wish I could have attended but the time of the meeting made it basically impossible.
Unfortunately the project seems to be devolving in the way I initially feared. I really think the public really misunderstood how committed ODOT was to Caps.
According to ODOT engineer I talked to in 2007, the Caps are designated as a wholly separate project that can occur simultaneously as the split fix. And while ODOT would be happy to design around them but the Caps would require funding by the City (ODOT would/may fund a portion of it but not all). But bottomline is Caps are considered optional by ODOT. Perhaps that’s changed but I doubt it.
They also told me that the project only has a 15 year viability life once completed before further action would be needed to alleviate new congestion.
This concerns me a great deal. The inner city and much othe downtown residential population is going to heavily inconvenienced by this project for years upon years by construction for something that apparently won’t even last very long. Furthermore small businesses near massive ongoing freeway construction projects tend to have insanely high failure rates. One of the reason the Short North was so cheap in the 1980′s was that 670 construction debacle killed the area. I’d hate to think we’d go to this all this trouble for something that may not even do what it’s intended to.
Furthermore we end up with a net gain of two feeder streets and they happen to be where land prices are among the most affordable and there is already existing heavy residential concentration already. I really don’t see how the city can unfeeder third and fourth, seems to me the city is still going to need them for workers to get to mound/fulton. That doesn’t help downtown get new residents by further dissecting downtown with feeder streets.
When I get a chance I’ll email Ferzan and post any comments about my concerns he has here.
Something really has to be done with better urban transportation in this city and county…Anyone can look at this project and see its more of a concern than anything. The city needs to push even harder for light rail and better bus services to provide for the city of Columbus…lets stop thinking the only way to get around here is by car!! Geez!
So again, where are city leaders standing up against ODOT? Their constituents, those who want it built and those that don’t, are both not at all happy about this.They are going to spend over $1 billion and not even address the real issue behind the higher rate of accidents in recent decades which is that there are too many cars, the vast majority with only one driver, clogging up the split at rush hour. The same highways built by ODOT which branch out to 270 attracted sprawling, car-dependent residential development. Meanwhile, the city of Columbus is spending over $10 million each on more remotely located arterials like Hard Rd. Turns out all of the “smart” growth that the city keeps encouraging up here is very car-dependent and due to more and more sprawling residential cul-de-sacs the city of Columbus is also doing it’s part to ensure more and more cars on these roads and highways down to the split with one person per vehicle.But let’s not actually address the problem behind the higher number of vehicles than what should be there. Instead of taking steps to lower that (streetcar/lightrail combo) we’ll just add as many lanes as possible and where we can’t we’ll just dump a couple of side streets which serve as feeders right on Downtown without caring about the consequences on Downtown and surrounding neighborhoods. And once we’re done with that it will soon be time to do it all over again because more sprawling residential development that is currently being built keeps adding more one-person cars on our highways.Even if the caps are built, you have to understand that they will not function with the new feeders in place. They themselves will be isolated on one side from Downtown and on the other from KLD & OTE by feeder streets which will serve as mini-moats. See Main St as an example of an intact urban block on a wide high-speed one-way (similar to Long and Spring where caps would be placed) cut off by two feeder streets (in Main’s case 3rd and 4th).
I would much rather see the $1. 6 billion spent on light rail and streetcars so that Columbus can ascend from our stone age status of transportation. We are basically foregoing transportation advancement, big city legitamacy, hundreds of millions in economic development and more sustainable and environmentally friendly transit for a wider canyon of asphalt with little to no aesthetic appeal, years of dust and construction traffic, headaches, loss of business, capacity for increased traffic, noise and pollution. It’s even asking too much for an extra tree here and there. Great way to treat your capital city ODOT. I cannot even describe how frustrated I am right now, which seems to be an ongoing theme of late.
This is kind of out there, but why don’t we think outside the box? We are designing this for car, rush hour(s) commuters only. It seems to me most hours of the day the current setup, however unsightly, works fine. Why not take a large portion of downtown area (east Franklinton, the area south of 670 between Abbott and Columbus State, the failed Jeffrey place site even) and make it an intermodal hub. You could have huge parking garages with easy freeway access, a link to a light rail using existing rail beds going in multiple directions, a bus hub to surrounding areas, and most importantly a circulator that could be a bus or tram system that constantly went around just the downtown. You would keep cars out of downtown, keep the existing freeway situation with only a major modification to just one focused area, and not have to worry about keeping so many people with so many agendas happy. Oh, and it just might save money, some of which could be used for caps on the existing freeway. Just a thought.
More cars beget more freeways. Or is it the other way around. It makes it easier to drive and sprawl.
I realize that the problem would be somewhat alleviated by getting our suburban commuters to change their mindset and use some kind of mass transportation. That applies to all the discussion about feeder streets, etc.
HOWEVER, this interesection still needs to be fixed for safety reasons. I believe I once read that “The Split” averages over 1 traffic accident per day, as trucks driving I-71 from Cincinnati to Cleveland have to do a dance accross multiple lanes of traffic with trucks going from Indy to Pittsburgh and then funnel into just one lane. I guess you could again “look at the big picture” and say, “They should be shipping by rail” or “make them take 270″ – but I don’t think that disconnecting our roadways from the rest of the US highway system would be good for local business. In fact, our interconnectivity with the US highway system is one of Columbus’s greatest assets.
I’ve been a long advocate for eliminating 315 and Olentangy River Road by campus and downtown. Instead, the two roads should be combined as a landscaped boulevard along the river (with bike trails, transit, and park space)….a more grand entry into the downtown. This would free up room for development in that area….prime real estate next to Battelle, Campus, Med Center, Downtown, etc…
Walker Says:
futureman Says: Last I heard they were going to have to knockdown a descent amount of the buildings on Parsons Ave around Carabar and ET Paul.
No, just those two. I believe those are the only buildings that will be lost for this project
Does anyone know where ET Paul’s is going to move to? They are my tire/brakes people and I love them.
Ughhh, I had not been paying attention to what was going on with this, nor did I realize how much it would affect my neighborhood (East Town St). I picture this making getting to the airport much harder than it currently is and that is highly irritating.
I was at the meeting too and am also disappointed.
Walker “One thing I forgot to question at the meeting last night… the rendering shown included bike plans along Parsons Avenue between Main Street and headed up toward Town/Bryden. I’m not sure if they were longer than that one block, but that’s about all they showed of it. If that is the case, then what’s the point of one block’s worth of bike lanes?”
The $25 million stimulus streetscape enhancement project located along Parsons and Livingston near Children’s includes bike lanes on Parsons. The Cbus Bicentennial Bikeways Plan calls for conversion of Bryden Road into a Bike Boulevard from Parsons to Alum Creek Trail (2013). Also from the Cbus Plan: old Parsons from Bryden to Broad is slated to be designated a bike route.
tourist 19 – Last I heard and please know that I’ve heard it secondhand that Mike is retiring and the business will be retiring with him.
hb Says: The $25 million stimulus streetscape enhancement project located along Parsons and Livingston near Children’s includes bike lanes on Parsons.
Gotcha! That’s a little more comforting to know. ;)
Wasn’t there an alternative plan that would’ve re-routed traffic around the central city area? I’d much rather see the city do that instead of spending all this money on a project that not very many people seem happy with. At least with having traffic re-routed around the downtown area, the city could fill in the spaces where old 70/71 was and reconnect downtown to its immediate surrounding areas…. not to mention add a lot of space for growth and development….
I suggest making the split 8 lanes wide instead of 10, and adding privately operated HOT lanes to the south outerbelt from I-70 to I-70. Plenty of dynamic message signs would be needed to let drivers know the travel times through downtown versus around the city and they should consider banning through trucks from downtown.
Thanks hb. That makes me super sad.
So they said caps and now it’s just a maybe? That is pretty disappointing. I don’t mind that they are fixing the freeway it needs it but I just think they should do it right and not have to revisit this in twenty years. I would have loved to see caps but it seems like a bait and switch was pulled. The whole IF we have the money. sad thing