Columbus finally fixed the I70 / I71 interchange. It’s baffling to me why in the beginning they thought it made sense that 2 four lane highways should merge into 1 four lane highway at the point at which they cross. They also improved 670 by adding an extra lane during rush hour. That was a pretty easy fix.
Glad to hear they are actually fixing something, somewhere. Lol.
I have a well-earned bias against ODOT. We had a bad intersection at SR 241 and CR 201 in Holmes Co. It was an intersection on a hill with blind dips on SR 241 if you were on 201 trying to cross 241. Even if you weren't Catholic, you crossed yourself before you went across. Even atheists did it.
So, they decide to fix it by lowering the hill and filling in the dips. They spent several million dollars and... It still has blind dips and is still dangerous. It's a puzzler. They improved it marginally.
About 25 years ago, I was seeing a ton of teenagers hurt in accidents at the access intersection to the local HS. One girl broke her neck. I finally decided to see if I could do something about it.
The intersection was a disaster. You had a state route with a 55 mph speed limit (during non-school hours) intersecting a road to the south to the school with a road to the north 50 yards offset. That offset made crossing the SR treacherous and confusing - especially for young, inexperienced drivers. There were stop signs on the north and south sides.
To the south of the intersection, you had a large wood products company and a large RV park. To the north was a grocery store.
So, you have to imagine the scene of teenagers, tourists, Amish buggies, horseback riders, school buses, tractors, large farming vehicles, pedestrians, semi and log trucks, large RVs, and locals trying to go thru or turn north or south at that intersection. It was chaos.
So, the first step was to contact the local ODOT engineer in New Philadelphia. I called this guy and described the problem. He asked me to wait while he checked something. He comes back after a minute and says, "We won't even bother to study it because no one has been killed there in the last 10 years." I pointed out that dozens had been seriously injured. Didn't move him. I said, "Are you telling me that a student has to die before you will even look at this?" I was ticked.
So I called my, then, state rep, Bob Gibbs. I explained the situation to him. He said that he would see what he could do. 10 min later the engineer I had talked to said they were going to study it. Lol. Gibbs proved to be the right lever to get the bureaucracy to move.
The guy studied it and called me back and told me that something had to be done. Lol. Anyone who looked at it for 10 min could have established that. They immediately lowered the speed limit and put up a caution light. About 15 years later, they fully fixed it with a traffic light and adding turning lanes.
But ODOT is a soulless bureaucracy that takes forever to address real issues - if you can get their attention and if their fix actually fixes the problems. So, not a fan.
www.eastbaytimes.com
) but I do know bridges.
