In Search of a City: Split Fix Flaws
Reconstruction of the I-71 and I-70 “split” in downtown shows how badly Ohio’s transportation policies need to be fixed.
Ohio will soon spend $1.7 billion rebuilding a few miles of interstate highway in downtown. The result will be a wider trench and monster freeway roaring through half a dozen urban neighborhoods.
One reason for reconstructing this stretch of highway makes sense, to make it safe. The other reason, to increase capacity, is ludicrous. Additional lanes for through traffic will not fix anything. According to ODOT, the wider highway will quickly fill to capacity, leaving us with no more than a bigger traffic jam. Why? Bigger highways merely enable the same people to drive longer distances to do tasks previously done closer to home.
In the meantime, Ohio legislators cannot seem to agree on spending $17 million per year to operate a 260-mile passenger rail line. Isn’t it interesting that our State legislators don’t debate the cost of maintaining highway “improvements?” How much do taxpayers spend on highway patrols, snow removal, roadway and bridge repairs, landscaping, lighting repairs, storm-water run-off, litter collection, signage, emergency medical services and other ongoing costs?
There is a solution for the highway “split” in downtown. Fix the safety problems. Don’t increase road capacity.
Tags: 70-71 split, Transportation
May 25th, 2010 at 4:09 pm
Cleve,
I feel your pain, but I think to describe the I-70/71 split as improving a few miles of highway is pretty simplistic. Included in this project are several new bridges and bridge caps similar to the High St. cap, major reconstruction of several arterial streets including Mound St., Fulton, Parsons, etc. For comparison sake, COTA several years ago estimated the costs for one lightrail line serving Polaris to be about $600 million. The cost today would easily reach $1 billion!
More people use this stertch of freeway and area streets in one month than would ride the 3-C in ten years. One simply can not ignore the highways. This project must be done. It’s just unfortunate that planners back in the 1960’s didn’t do it right the first time!
May 31st, 2010 at 4:50 pm
This project does *not* need to be done. ODOT themselves make the argument for that. The fact of the matter is that even with the so-called fix they would have to make the capacity large enough to handle the current amount that is overcapacity, which is 60,000 vehicles too many each day *and* ensure that the new design will not go over capacity for several decades. Not once have they ever presented evidence of how their solution will address capacity and the reason for why there are so many accidents in the first place: too many motor-vehicles (many of which only carry one person each). ODOT says so themselves.
“The I-70/I-71 South Innerbelt corridor in downtown Columbus – commonly called “the downtown split” – is one of the busiest and most vital sections of highway in the region. ***It serves approximately 150,000 vehicles and 17,000 trucks per day. Built in the 1960’s, it has served the community well. But, with the increase in traffic over the years, it has become hazardous.***” – ODOT (*s mine)
http://www.dot.state.oh.us/projects/7071study/Pages/ProjectOverview.aspx
As ODOT points out it’s the high number of traffic that’s the root of the problem. On their goals & objectives page, reducing the number of traffic, which is the cause, is not mentioned or even alluded to *anywhere*.
http://www.dot.state.oh.us/projects/7071study/Pages/GoalsObjectives.aspx
ODOT has a bad track record of effective long-term planning. Their own graph here shows that the split which was opened in 1964 went over capacity in just two decades. Are we really going to spend $1.7 billion only to face the exact same problem in a couple of decades or less?
http://www.dot.state.oh.us/projects/7071study/PublishingImages/TotalvsTrucks.gif
The city of Columbus should be standing up against ODOT and present a real solution, which sadly has remained silent. What that solution should be is clear: reduce the number of motor-vehicles using the split thereby saving lives and $1.7 billion. Money spent on police enforcement of the slower speed limit along the split with large fines advertised on large roadway signs, and cameras to catch unsafe behavior and address it with tickets would actually do something to alter dangerous motorist behavior and would pale in comparison to the split’s price tag. In addition to that, encourage car-alternatives: more sharrows and signage not just on High, but every street that goes in and out of Downtown and add scooter parking all over Downtown, not just in a few clusters here and there.
Another problem is that the Public Service Department is currently working to increase the number of vehicles on the split by adding lanes for more capacity to Hilliard Rome near 270, N High up past 270, Hard Rd near 270, Alum Creek Dr near I-70, etc.
http://pubserv.ci.columbus.oh.us/transportation/PROJECT_OVERVIEWS.htm
This is occurring all while the Dispatch just cited a study showing that over half of *current* Columbus roads rank as “poor” to “very poor” and have been underfunded since the 1990s.
http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2010/01/16/STREETS.ART_ART_01-16-10_B1_RGGALG5.html
Director Mark Kelsey is quoted as saying that they, “just try to preserve what we have”.
http://www.dispatchpolitics.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2010/01/31/copy/PAVEMENT.ART_ART_01-31-10_B1_10GESFP.html?sid=101
Is adding miles of new roads for more capacity which will inevitably spillover onto our highways, including the already overcapacity split, how we address severely unmaintained streets? Not only that, but many high-speed one-way pairs outside of Downtown continue to help funnel high numbers of cars onto the split whether it’s Summit and N 4th or Miller and Kelton or Ohio and Champion. These long-ignored errors have yet to be corrected and possibly reduce the number of vehicles on the split. Why? The then assistant public service director, Mary Carran Webster, said regarding the Summit and N 4th conversion that there’s “no money”.
http://www.dispatchpolitics.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2009/05/02/copy/WEINLANDPLAN.ART_ART_05-02-09_B2_NMDO20K.html?adsec=politics&sid=101
Funny then, how they are able to spend tens of millions on several single projects as long as it’s to add new lanes that we won’t be able to maintain in the near future which will divert more traffic onto a split for which we won’t have the money to retool again and again. You will find none of these facts being raised in the Dispatch. *Insert Albert Einstein quote here*
August 28th, 2010 at 12:44 pm
No mixing in that message!
Millions for Rail
BILLIONS for Highways (Check out I75 work also)
not so subtle hint …keep on drivin’!