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According to this article in the Dispatch, the “grand boulevard” idea for 70/71 has been put to rest. So what does that mean exactly? Well, the next idea on the plate is a series of 10 highway caps, similar to the one built at High Street on top of the 670 underpass a few years ago. This beautification project would be in addition to the re-working of the 70/71 highway configuration and would help to reconnect neighborhoods long divided by the highway scar downtown on the east and south sides.
Comments
- cheap: i highly recommend the Millersport sweet corn festival of course,the cor
- Jimmy Mak: Thanks for the write-up! Just to clarify - this is the third year we've do
- Briana Henry: Well, eventually they plan to add more bands from the region...gotta start
- bucki12: I like the business model, but the internet sales part seems like something
- racheltb: I don't see the Ohio Shrimp Fest on the list. It is truly a good time. h
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I’ve been thinking more about this and getting really excited if this plan goes through. The 670 cap has done a FANTASTIC job of linking the Short North with the Convention Center & Arena District. Does anyone remember what the High Street bridge over 670 looked like 4 years ago sans cap? Allow me to remind you.
Now, picture this same sort of improvement over 70 & 71 at 10 different streets! I’m guessing they’d be located at Front, High, 3rd, 4th, Grant, Main, Town, Broad, Long, and Spring. It would unite the Brewery District and German Village with Riversouth and Market Exchange. It would unite Old Town East with the Discovery District. It would be just the filler those areas need to cover the “scar” that is the 70/71 split while also bringing additional office/retail space to those in-between areas.
Gives me goosebumps just thinking about it. :D
Yup, it was just as ugly as all of the other ones over the highway right now! :)
I hope it goes through too, will be very cool!
The real question is this: does it make any sense to be doing these camps before the big 70-71 split reconstruction, which is supposedly in the pipeline in the medium-term future? I don’t imagine that the location of any of the cross-streets is going to be changed at all, but from an engineering standpoint, I imagine it would be a royal headache to build something right *over* the road you’re about to completely rebuild.
It’s all a part of the same project. The caps are just a small part of it and should be a part of the overall construction.
Just like the 670 cap was a part of the 670 widening and rebuilding. 8)
I skimmed the article, was their mention of the time table for this? It has to be quite an extensive project. 10 years?
Found this here: http://www.dot.state.oh.us/7071study/
So sad that over $600 million will be spent on this one split (sans caps) instead of a light rail line, which costs about as much (or less depending on the routes). We’re still making highways a priority over other modes of transportation, which doesn’t sound like something America’s 21st Century City would do.
^ We only have ourselves and COTA to blame for that one. The people voted the light rail proposal down. It makes me sick every time I think about it. :cry:
Also…according to the dispatch article, here are the caps. I can’t see the plaza caps on the east side coming to fruition at those price tags, but the streets being capped should really be nice. I checked them out on Google Maps and they just look too wide and long.
Of course I’m biased in saying this, but if Front to Third isn’t capped, then we’ve got our priorities all messed up. I’d put those caps above any on the east side.
A light rail line would only serve central Ohio residents and local traffic. 70/71 is a major crossroads that sees traffic from all over the country pass through. A light rail line isn’t going to do anything for that type of traffic. An upgrade for 70/71 is long overdue. I wouldn’t say that this upgrade is sad… I’d say that building these major highways through the core of a city and scarring neighborhoods back in the 60s was the sad thing. But that’s the way the country was growing. Gas was cheap and plentiful. To have continued to expand rail transit back then would have been more expensive and fewer and fewer people would have used it as cars became a better alternative.
So yeah, I’m not trying to say the light rail wouldn’t be a great addition, but SOMETHING needs to be done about 70/71 and with the cosmetic caps going in, I see this upgrade as a chance to rebuild broken neighboorhoods and repair the scar through the middle of our city.
It sounds like someone has seen “The End of Suburbia” lately. :lol:
http://www.endofsuburbia.com/
How exactly does capping the freeways downtown help traffic through that area? I’m a little confused on this point.
I saw it about a year ago. It was an ok movie, but a lot of it seemed a bit alarmist. Everyone was talking as if there’s going to be some sort of doomsday scenario when one day we’re going to wake up and all the gas stations will be empty and there will be panic in the streets. :roll: Gas will slowly run out and we’ll gradually move to something else.
Columbusite was talking about the sans-caps upgrades. The whole 70/71 split is being re-worked to improve the traffic flow, handle more cars, and prevent accidents. THAT is what I was talking about helping through downtown where a rail line would not.
The caps are a bonus… and our best chance to mask the scar that was made 40+ years ago when the highway was built through downtown ripping neighborhoods apart. So that’s beneficial for the local community.
Fixing the split will do nothing to lessen the amount of traffic that makes the area so dangerous. If we had light rail instead, that would lower the number of cars on the freeways and make them safer for everyone, though which ones would depend on wherever that rail line would be.
With sprawl, cars are the only option, train simply isn’t viable, but we can change that now. You can quote me on this, fixing this split will not make it substantially safer because it doesn’t address the real problem, too many cars on the freeways due to a lack of alternatives like rail.
We both agree that something needs to be done about the high rate of accidents in the vicinity, but like I said I doubt revamping it would do anything close to minimizing the number of accidents caused by so many cars going through there like light rail could. I’d rather they started getting rid of the sections of highways cutting through downtown and re-route those to the city streets. For those who want to drive past the city, take I-270.[/i]
I’m not so sure about that. Supply and demand are tight and getting tighter as some of the worlds largest fields are going into irreversible decline. No amount of ethanol, tar sands, oil shale, or hydrogen is going to turn that around. Once things get tight enough, all it takes is one hurricane, or one crazy dictator who’s not afraid to swing the oil sword (there are a few possibilities at the moment). After that, demand outstrips supply, we end up with a gas crisis.
Sometime in the next decade, we’re going to be using less energy than we do today. After looking at everything, that’s the only way it can happen in my mind. The days of cheap gas are officially over though. Now it’s just a matter of, how high to prices need to go to start destroying demand. According to AAA…$3 hasn’t been high enough.
The AMOUNT of traffic is only one factor in what makes the split dangerous. The real reason there are so many wrecks is because you have to change lanes to stay on the same highway whether it’s 70 or 71. The current configuration forces everyone to switch sides if they want to continue on the same roads, which was a stupid idea 40 years ago even when it was designed for less traffic.
So yeah, fixing the split will make it safer. It won’t lessen the amount of traffic (what sort of highway upgrade could do that?) but provide a wider artery and a more direct path to accommodate that traffic.
I will definitely hold you to this. One of the main reasons they’re fixing the split is to improve safety. Are you saying that the dozens of engineers working on this thing are going to fail one of their major objectives?
And how is that supposed to improve safety? Rerouting through-traffic into residential neighborhoods is bound to cause more problems. I don’t think many taxpayers would approve of something like that. And taking 270 around would be a pain in the ass and a lot of extra driving time. 270 is already pretty busy in spots, but if you dump ALL of the 70/71 traffic on it can you imagine what rush hour would be like? You’d have residents trying to get home from work and spending 2-3 hours stuck on 270 in that mess.
Highways are a vital part of our transportation system. You can be pro-mass-transit but that doesn’t mean you have to be anti-highway. We actually have a pretty good layout in Columbus and our commute times remain pretty low overall for a city of our size. We could really use a mass-transit option locally, but to think it could replace our interstate highway system is just stupid. The population is going to probably increase in our country for quite sometime, and our highways will continue to increase in traffic whether our cars use gas or something else.
Yes. A decline. Not a dead halt.
A gas crisis meaning that the gas gets more expensive. Not that the pumps run dry. Again, that movie was giving off the impression that gas was going to just be completely gone one morning and everyone in suburbia would be stranded and have to resort to cannibalism or something? :roll:
I doubt it. Americans may be consuming less gasoline as it becomes a higher priority that we have better gas milage with our cars, but the way the world’s population is still soaring, especially in countries like China and India where the energy technology isn’t as high-tech and wide-spread as it is in other countries, the world as a whole will be consuming more energy than it is today.
I think it’s already started to lessen demand. Many people are starting to conserve and are driving less than they used to.
he AMOUNT of traffic is only one factor in what makes the split dangerous. The real reason there are so many wrecks is because you have to change lanes to stay on the same highway whether it’s 70 or 71. The current configuration forces everyone to switch sides if they want to continue on the same roads, which was a stupid idea 40 years ago even when it was designed for less traffic.
So yeah, fixing the split will make it safer. It won’t lessen the amount of traffic (what sort of highway upgrade could do that?) but provide a wider artery and a more direct path to accommodate that traffic.
I will definitely hold you to this. One of the main reasons they’re fixing the split is to improve safety. Are you saying that the dozens of engineers working on this thing are going to fail one of their major objectives?
Look at the “40 years ago” statement you made. They`ll be working with an overutilized mode of transportation.
And how is that supposed to improve safety? Rerouting through-traffic into residential neighborhoods is bound to cause more problems. I don’t think many taxpayers would approve of something like that. And taking 270 around would be a pain in the ass and a lot of extra driving time. 270 is already pretty busy in spots, but if you dump ALL of the 70/71 traffic on it can you imagine what rush hour would be like? You’d have residents trying to get home from work and spending 2-3 hours stuck on 270 in that mess.
Highways are a vital part of our transportation system. You can be pro-mass-transit but that doesn’t mean you have to be anti-highway. We actually have a pretty good layout in Columbus and our commute times remain pretty low overall for a city of our size. We could really use a mass-transit option locally, but to think it could replace our interstate highway system is just stupid. The population is going to probably increase in our country for quite sometime, and our highways will continue to increase in traffic whether our cars use gas or something else.
I give you this: http://ntl.bts.gov/lib/1000/1100/1165/00778490.pdf
I’m not anti-highway, I’m anti-excessive highway. Having I-70 west start/end off of W Broad and I-70 east start/end off of Livingston isn’t like re-routing them onto residential backstreets, they’re both major streets. Look at maps of similarly sized cities in Europe (that are 24/7 unlike ours) and you’ll see that they only have the equivalent of I-270, there are no freeways going through or even leading up to their downtowns, of which I’m just suggesting the former. That particular approach isn’t stupid and mass transit can supplement highway usage. If other comparable large cities are doing well with mass transit with only the equivalent of 270, then surely we can manage having highways lead all the way up outside of our downtown without going through there and the immediately surrounding urban neighborhoods. This would be a gradual process with alternative modes of transportation implemented. Kind of should have mentioned that last bit. :)
I’d like to see this sort of thing done in the US before deciding if it’s the optimal solution. I think there’s too many additional factors to compare a US city and a European city of similar sizes so easily. The article you linked is claiming that when those roads were removed/rerouted that the traffic just magically disappeared, which I find insanely hard to believe. People still have to get to work. Trucks still need to deliver goods. If they’re not going to do it on one road, they’re going to do it on another. If you dam up a river, the river isn’t going to just magically stop flowing. The water will go somewhere. :wink:
Anyway, I still think having a highway crossroads like 70/71 cut through downtown has benefits. Travelers from other cities and states can admire our downtown while passing through, perhaps inticing them to stop and visit. If you send them around 270, you’re only giving them the option to stop in the suburbs and sending revenue out of the city. I think highways can co-exist with a thriving urban downtown if done correctly. And the way it’s currently set up here (and most US cities) is ugly and intrusive.
[quote="Walker"]
Hey, why not be the first? We could be the first in the nation to have our downtown/urban neighborhoods go back to the way they were back in the pre-highway era. I think the main factors is the prevelance of low density developments and poor mass transit, the latter due to the former. If you think about the cities that study, not article, talked about, I’m rather certain they had decent mass transit options, unlike us. The reason some traffic in those cities “disappeared” was because the people there had another way to get to where they needed/wanted to go. People driving would find another road or they’d use mass transit instead. When 670 was closed I don’t recall there being horrendous traffic and I was able to get around just fine. I just used an alternate route and other people were able to do the same. It’s counter-intuitive, I know, I thought that was very strange too, but that is what the evidence has shown.
Now come on Walker, you know as well as I do that for the very small number of people who just decide to check out Columbus on a whim while driving on their way through downtown won’t have a good impression. Without having any background knowledge of the city they’ll drive around our nearly dead downtown then leave and that’ll be their impression of the city. If having a highway go through the city really was beneficial I think we’d have seen that by now. As it is, suburbs get more revenue regardless. I agree with your last two sentences and I think the caps will go a long way when paired up with the streetcar system.
Because it most likely wouldn’t work. You even said yourself that the European cities had other modes of transportation available. Our city does not, and to try to revamp the highway configuration and install a brand new light rail system is not going to convert hundreds of thousands of people into different types of commuters overnight.
Again, this would be a great ideal to strive for, but again… it’s not going to happen overnight. The highway system got to where it is today after decades of development. Dismantling it overnight and installing mass transit would not be an instant fix. It would take decades (and generations) to change people’s mindsets about transportation. I say build the light rail first and fix the highway for safety. Then worry about closing highways in another 30 years when the mass transit catches on and has become a decent and reliable option for people to use.
“Finding another road” = “disappeared” ???
670 is not a major throughfare like 70/71 are. 670 was only closed for a small stretch, so the traffic impact it had on the alternate routes was minimal.
If 70/71 were closed through downtown, 270 would suffer.
I’m not talking about people getting off the highway to drive THROUGH downtown, I’m talking about driving through downtown on the highway. Every major city you pass through gives you a glimpse of their downtown areas from the major highways. To shuttle people AROUND that into the suburbs would place Columbus further into obscurity for the potential passers-by. That’s what I’m saying.