I-70/71 Columbus Crossroads

[GCrites]

The Mound Street Connector seems really logical now that it's there. It almost looks like it was there from the beginning.

[Central Avenue]

Every time I drive past there I find myself wishing it were open so I could give it a try. Glad to know it won't be too much longer.

[GCrites]

^With all due respect, I must say your username puts me in a depressing mood.

[vtk]

...because Central Ave is in a ghetto?

[GCrites]

I wouldn't really call it a ghetto due to the fact that it is racially diverse and doesn't contain a majority of people from outside the USA. Run-down for sure though.

[exit10]

Didn't get a pic, but there's a sign on the Exit 100B ramp from I-70W/I-71S to Fourth Street (US 23) indicating it is closing for good this Friday (November 7), so presumably the Mound Street Connector will be open for business on or near that date. There was also a new overhead sign (labeled simply "Downtown") installed over the ramp for what will be Exit 101B.

Personally, I will not miss the idiocy that ramp revealed in local drivers, who never seemed capable of understanding that a green arrow supersedes a red light.

[vtk]

Didn't get a pic, but there's a sign on the Exit 100B ramp from I-70W/I-71S to Fourth Street (US 23) indicating it is closing for good this Friday (November 7), so presumably the Mound Street Connector will be open for business on or near that date. There was also a new overhead sign (labeled simply "Downtown") installed over the ramp for what will be Exit 101B.

Yes, the new exit will open the following morning, as has been mentioned just a few posts upthread.

I'm surprised the sign says only Downtown.  IMO it should also say Mound Street, or (following the lead of the new exit from 71 SB) the first major cross street, which would be Washington or Grant.

[6a]

After that and the finishing of the 18th St. bridge things will cool off until 2017, so says the Columbus Dispatch.

Columbus highway project will idle until 2017 after connector is completed
Rick Rouan
Nov 2, 2014 06:11
Commuters will be getting some breathing room on Downtown highways for at least a little while.

The Ohio Department of Transportation's plan to untangle Downtown highways will be on hiatus for two years once the $30 million Mound Street connector project wraps up this fall.

That means the cranes, bulldozers and pavers that have become a mainstay on interstates near the city center shouldn't return in force until 2017.

The new ramp bridge that will carry westbound I-70 traffic onto Mound Street, which is now a one-way street, opens on Saturday. ODOT will close the 4th Street exit from the highway for good on Friday. Complete General Construction still needs to finish rebuilding the 18th Street bridge over the highway before the project is completed at the end of the year.

Once the finishing touches are applied, though, Downtown highways should be clear of major construction until nearly $300 million for the next two phases becomes available in 2017.

"Things will settle down for a while,"  said Rick Tilton, assistant director in the Columbus Department of Public Service. "There will be a period of adjustment."

ODOT has been working on Downtown interstates since September 2011, when it started the $200 million rebuilding of the I-71/670 interchange. Crews finished that project this year.

The Mound Street connector project started in July 2013. A new bridge will carry westbound I-70 drivers who want to exit to Downtown over the interchange and Parsons Avenue and onto the surface street, where they can connect with northbound arteries.

The project also seals off the 4th Street exit, a crash-prone area that drivers were using illegally, said Nancy Burton, ODOT spokeswoman. "There was a lot of weaving and merging of people trying to enter the highway, people trying to go through and people trying to exit."

About 175,000 vehicles use the interchange each day, and the corridor averaged two crashes a day between 2002 and 2012.

Drivers will have to decide sooner that they want to exit to Downtown, Burton said. Drivers rounding the bend after exits for Alum Creek and Miller-Kelton will need to stay in the second lane from the left to hit the new ramp. The ramp then will split into two lanes before it dumps traffic onto Mound, she said.

Signs for the exit will read Downtown, she said, not Mound Street.

Mound already has been converted for one-way traffic between Washington Avenue and 4th Street. Traffic signals are in place at Washington and Grant avenues and 4th and 5th streets. All of those streets can be used to head north into the heart of Downtown.

The 18th Street bridge should re-open to traffic in December, Burton said, capping off more than three years of continuous Downtown highway construction.

ODOT is to be back on Downtown interstates in 2017 to start work on the I-70/71 east interchange, a $166 million project. It also is to start rebuilding eastbound and northbound lanes of the I-70/71 south innerbelt, which will cost about $128 million.

Future phases are planned in 2022 and 2023.

"Ultimately, when the entire Downtown improvements are done, it will provide for people to be somewhat more direct to their destination,"  said Nick Gill, assistant transportation director at the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission.

[6a]

A drive down the Mound St. Connector. I even managed to hit a green wave!

[6a]

They've finally gotten a little wise and have restriped 70 to two through lanes at the connector, merging to one closer to the old 4th street exit. Only problem is now the Downtown exit sign has the arrow pointing at the wrong lane.

[vtk]

They've finally gotten a little wise and have restriped 70 to two through lanes at the connector, merging to one closer to the old 4th street exit. Only problem is now the Downtown exit sign has the arrow pointing at the wrong lane.

I suspect that may have been the plan all along.  For the time when that was one lane, it appeared the right shoulder and the old exit ramp were repurposed as a kind of service road for construction access, though I never saw any vehicles using it.  Now that such a service road is (apparently) no longer needed, the right lane is back in service.

I've only gone through there once since the change, and I didn't really get a good look at what needs fixing with the signs.

[6a]

They've finally gotten a little wise and have restriped 70 to two through lanes at the connector, merging to one closer to the old 4th street exit. Only problem is now the Downtown exit sign has the arrow pointing at the wrong lane.

I've only gone through there once since the change, and I didn't really get a good look at what needs fixing with the signs.

A Whole Lot

[tradephoric]

A drive down the Mound St. Connector. I even managed to hit a green wave!

You're impressed about hitting a green wave along a one-way street?  That's cute.  Here's a real green wave. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kf720nj0WMk

[6a]

Never said I was impressed, it made for a smoother video.

[Alex]

Columbus Crossroads main project website: http://www.dot.state.oh.us/projects/7071/Pages/default.aspx (page layout a bit broken -- look for a horizontal scroll bar at the bottom of the content area...)

Indeed the web page is designed poorly. Trying to find current information requires some sifting, and the best I could discover are PDF files from March of 2014.

Based upon the March 2014 section of the site, is subsequent work currently on hold until funding kicks in?
http://www.dot.state.oh.us/projects/7071/publicmeetings/March2014MeetingFiles/03-19-14%20-1-%20Columbus%20Crossroads%20Phasing%20Plan.pdf

[busman_49]

...is subsequent work currently on hold until funding kicks in?

That's the impression I was under

[vtk]

Columbus Crossroads main project website: http://www.dot.state.oh.us/projects/7071/Pages/default.aspx (page layout a bit broken -- look for a horizontal scroll bar at the bottom of the content area...)

Indeed the web page is designed poorly. Trying to find current information requires some sifting, and the best I could discover are PDF files from March of 2014.

Based upon the March 2014 section of the site, is subsequent work currently on hold until funding kicks in?
http://www.dot.state.oh.us/projects/7071/publicmeetings/March2014MeetingFiles/03-19-14%20-1-%20Columbus%20Crossroads%20Phasing%20Plan.pdf

I don't think I've heard any newer information, though the schedule could get reshuffled a bit when Congress figures out what to do about highway funding or the next time Kasich sneezes.

As it is, looks like phases 2 and 4A are next starting in 2017, which means:

• No more weaving on I-70 E between entering I-71 N and exiting Front St
• I-70 E and I-71 N will no longer have to cross streams
• I-70 W will have separate exits to I-71 N and I-670-via-71
• I-70 W and I-71 S will cross streams for a few years until Phase 6A
• A few more blocks of Mound St C/D conversion
• A few blocks of Fulton St C/D conversion feeding new ramps to I-70 E and I-71 N
• I-70 E gets new ramp to Parsons Ave, loses ramp to 18th St

[6a]

Thankfully every time Kasich sneezes it seems to be in favor of the Columbus road system. I have also been thinking nothing new until 2017, which irks me because they used this project as an excuse to drop the speed limit on 70E at W. Broad, instead of 315. Also, the next phase looks to be a hell of a lot of bridges over the river.

There was a community meeting some time ago regarding the Bellows School. I think ODOT gave in to preservationists (even though the only thing holding it up is the will of the almighty and I think the plywood over the windows is now load bearing ) but that scratches the EB 70 to NB 315 movement.  No big loss, just take 670, but they are still tinkering with the design on that end.

You can kinda see some of the next phase in the extra space under the new 18th Street bridge, the goofy jog in the new Mound St ramp, and the angle of the new(ish, at this point) retaining wall near Africentric HS. I'm pretty sure they're a good ways on, if not finished, with property stuff along Parsons...ET Paul is a goner for the most part.

[vtk]

There was a community meeting some time ago regarding the Bellows School. I think ODOT gave in to preservationists (even though the only thing holding it up is the will of the almighty and I think the plywood over the windows is now load bearing ) but that scratches the EB 70 to NB 315 movement.  No big loss, just take 670, but they are still tinkering with the design on that end.

Oh yeah, I forgot about the revised Mound—Sandusky Interchange design.  To me it looks underdesigned, it makes the ramps to & from Mound St practically pointless, and it moots the whole first bunch of posts of the Sign Plan Challenge thread.  Speaking of those ramps, a redevelopment proposal wants to make a full interchange there:

Those would be some steep inclines for the new ramps, and I don't think ODOT would like the new weaving created between there and the Central/Sullivant ramps...

[vtk]

The next phase of 70/71, the east split full rebuild, was scheduled for 2017 but has been postponed to '18 due to a lack of funding, according to recent reporting in local media.

[cl94]

The next phase of 70/71, the east split full rebuild, was scheduled for 2017 but has been postponed to '18 due to a lack of funding, according to recent reporting in local media.

Not like there isn't enough work going on in Columbus right now. 270/23/315 is moving west to 315 and 270/33 is well underway. Might give them a chance to finish those projects first.

[vtk]

Surprise, apparently the plan's been changed again, and construction is starting in the vicinity of the east junction of 70 & 71.  The following graphic, which looks barely above MS Paint standards, is apparently the latest and best info about what's happening when:


(from Columbus Crossroads Phasing Map And Descriptions

All the other info about phases and schedules, while more detailed, is apparently now outdated, as all the phase designations in the current graphic are new.  There's also some graphic PDFs showing the South Innerbelt and East Innerbelt in hastily-rendered detail, partially obscured by gray patches that may or may not be there to reduce attention on parts that aren't happening yet, but I guess they do show the extents of the new phases, now that I've had some time to process the information that's available to me.

It's still unclear to me whether there will be a ~3year period in which 71 SB traffic will have to weave across 70 WB traffic...

[Hot Rod Hootenanny]

I'll believe in the start of "phase 4" & "phase 6" when I see it. There is no secured funding for them as of now.

[cl94]

I'll believe in the start of "phase 4" & "phase 6" when I see it. There is no secured funding for them as of now.

Granted, I was saying the same thing about the East Innerbelt stuff a decade ago. Quite different from how it was when I lived in the area in the mid-2000s. At least ODOT actually seems to be able to fund things. Can't say that about my state, which can barely fund required maintenance.

[vtk]

What they're basically promising now is 7 years of continuous construction and then it still won't be all done, unless they move forward with other phases before 2024, in which case it'll be at least a decade of continuous construction.  We're about to get an orange-barrel occupation like Clevelanders, Cincinnatians, Daytonians, and Toledoans are familiar with.