I’m headed to a meeting this afternoon where ODOT is supposed to be announcing some of their finalized plans for the Interstate 70/71 Split Fix project.
This area is one of the most congested and crash-prone sections of highway throughout the entire state. I’m in favor of doing something about it… but there’s much more to this than just adding more highway lane and calling it “fixed”.
ODOT is proposing a $1.6 Billion reworking of the freeway system through these few miles of urban Columbus that includes new city-level highway feeder streets along Mound, Fulton, Parsons, and Lester. Quite expensive, and quite a headache too, as the project timeline is expected to run from 2010 through 2017.
I’m hoping that it’s not true, but rumor has it that ODOT is trying to back out of some of the budgetary promises they made to the City of Columbus and the affected urban neighborhoods. Those promises include ODOT’s plans to make the new feeder streets more pedestrian and neighborhood friendly, reconnecting areas with highway caps and better bridges, and other types of noise-reduction and beautification.
When these highways were originally constructed, they destroyed blocks and blocks of Downtown homes, businesses, and liveliness and left neighborhoods divided with a massive highway “scar”. We have a perfect opportunity to undo some of the damage that has been done, and hopefully ODOT is not planning on skimping when it comes to neighbors of the split.
I posted some thoughts back in January about how this project also gives us the opportunity to “reclaim” our old feeder streets (Third, Fourth, Long, and Spring) and convert them back into vibrant urban two-way roadways.
Anyway… I guess I’ll find out more tonight about how all of this will shake out. Stay tuned.