Oh, all right. Here's the entire post.
Groundbreaking News: ODOT May Have Lied to City Council to Make Case for Split Reconstruction
When I attended the televised the I-70 71 meeting at City Hall on 7/14/10 ODOT representatives kept using the figure of 175,000 motor vehicles a day using the split, which was originally intended for 120,000 vehicles as maximum capacity. However, ODOT officials were quoted in the Dispatch on 1/24/2009 stating that the split has over 50,000 overcapacity vehicles each day (over 170,000 vehicles total) while ODOT Deputy Director Scott Varner was quoted in a 7/1/2010 interview with Outlook saying that the split carries 175,00o vehicles a day. According to ODOT the east leg of the split, phases 1, 2, and 3, sees 126,700 motor vehicles per day. (Click for larger image.)
Image from ODOT
FYI, ADT=Average Daily Traffic. Again, the split has a capacity of 120,000 vehicles. That means the entire eastern leg of the split from 670 down to the highway entanglement at Main is in no need whatsoever of additional capacity in the form of one-way feeder lanes let alone reconstruction; you can see they used blue font for non-problematic amounts of ADT such as that one, but they did use red font for the two larger numbers on the southern leg of the split. In reality, we're spending $1.7 billion on 1.7 miles, which is only around half of the split. The amount of money we're going to spend on each 1/10 of a mile is astounding: over $588 million per 1/10th of a mile. And wouldn't you know, it doesn't end there by any means.
I was confused by the figure quoted in the agenda of 146,000 vehicles a day using the split while ODOT officials kept repeating "175,000". Now I know why there was such a drastic difference. Look at the date of the figure quoted: 2002. Let's take a look at MORPC's Traffic Count Data System for more up-to-date ADT figures. Looking at the same location on the southwest portion of the split just east of Whittier St the number of daily vehicles using this portion of the split is not 174,900, but 133,920 as of 2006. That's near the current capacity of 120,000 vehicles a day and a drop of over 40,000 vehicles a day and we didn't have to do a thing! According to a USA Today article from 3/11/1o we're down to near 1950s levels when it comes to highway deaths and the split has certainly likewise seen correlating, dramatic drops in the number of daily users and crashes. (Click for larger image)
Image from MORPC & Google Maps
Now let's take a look at the southeastern location near Grant that shows 167,500 a day as of 2002, but is down to 128,370. What do you know, those numbers are likewise the lowest recorded since 1986 according to ODOT's chart.
Image from ODOT
And just where does MORPC get their ADT data on the split for 2006 anyway? ODOT.
"The counts on this segment were extracted from the Ohio ODOT's Traffic Survey Reports"
Image from MORPC' & Google Maps
It's no wonder that ODOT's maps and charts page only utilizes data around the year 2000, because without it there is demonstrably no reason whatsoever to even touch the split since traffic volumes are near or below the maximum capacity that the split was built to handle. At best, ODOT unknowingly mislead City Council and Columbus residents by presenting vastly outdated information and at worst, lied right in our face.
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