25 years ago today, in Central Ohio

Started by Hot Rod Hootenanny, October 28, 2011, 12:08:12 PM

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Hot Rod Hootenanny

Six Lanes planned for U.S. 23 South
By Cynthia Salter, Gazette Reporter (October 28, 1986)

A 25-year roads plan that would widen US. 23 to six lanes with limited access and put a four-lane cross-county highway in the Powell area was presented Monday to the Delaware County commissioners. The recommendations include connecting U.S. 36 and Ohio 37 to U.S. 23 south of Delaware.
The commissioners plan to show the thouroughfare plan to township trustees and village officials at a meeting tentatively scheduled for 7:30 p.m.  Nov. 18 at the Orange Township Fire Station.
Another public meeting, for citizen participation, is tentatively set for a week later — at 7:30 pm Nov. 25 at the Orange Township Fire Station.
The Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission prepared the thoroughfare plan after a 10-month study that cost the county $19,500.
The plan included the southern nine townships — Concord, Liberty, Orange, Genoa, Harlem, Trenton, Berkshire, Berlin, and Delaware Township's unincorporated areas.
The report was prepared by Robert Lawler...tation engineer, who studied the county's growth back to 1980. He predicted accelerated growth, estimating that population will more than double, retail space will double, office space will quadruple and housing will double in southern townships by 2010.
He measured roads, checked rights of way at the courthouse and compiled traffic counts, combining these with land-use information to arrive at his recommendations.
The problems he found were no big surprises — U.S. 23; east-west travel in the southern townships; traffic through the city from U.S. 42, U.S. 36 and Ohio 37; overburdened county and township roads.
Lawler recommends maintaining U.S. 23 as a through route. It now handles 20,000 vehicles a day and that will double by 2010, he said. But heavy traffic and frequent intersections slow traffic and frequent intersections slow traffic. And people are taking alternate routes — Olentangy River Road, for example — and overworking those roads, he said.
"Access controls are probably the best way to preserve U.S. 23 as a through way,"  Lawler said. This means building service roads along U.S. 23 to intersect with driveways and smaller roads. The service road then would intersect with U.S. 23, cutting down on traffic lights.
Improvements to U.S. 23 will reduce some problems on Ohio 315 and Ohio 257, Lawler said, but will not solve traffic overloads in Liberty Township. Lawler considered widening Liberty Road, but instead recommends making Sawmill Road four lanes to Home Road, then extending Sawmill north — as a two-lane road - to the city of Delaware.
To provide an east-west corridor in southern Delaware County, Lawler considered recommending that the county build a new road north of Powell Road. But, because of the expense, he recommends using as much of Powell Road as possible and building a bypass around the village of Powell.
Lawler also recommends a bypass around Delaware, connecting U.S. 36 and Ohio 37 with U.S. 23 just south of where U.S. 23 crosses the Olentangy River.  To the west, he said, South Section Line Road could be used for part of the bypass, with a new road built over to U.S. 23.
He recommends connecting U.S. 42 into the bypass to reduce traffic through the city and provide better access to the Delaware Airport and the industrial park.
Other recommendations:
Widen U.S. 36 east of I-71 to four lanes — through Sunbury to the county line.
Widen Ohio 3 to four lanes — beginning with the southern part where traffic is heaviest, but eventually extending to Sunbury
Widen several roads in the Westerville area to four lanes

Lawler said his recommendations will help reach the common goal for orderly growth and help preserve old communities and their heritages, locate offices/retail/industry on state routes and retain rural atmosphere.
County Engineer Fred Stults said he is pleased with the report.
"You can't do thoroughfare planning in one area,"  he said. "You have to look at the whole situation. Liberty Township had the original problem — liberty and Orange Township. But the solution has to fit across township lines."
The next step, he said, will be drawing up a land use plan, followed by water and sewer service plans and fire protection plans.
The commissioners reacted favorably to the report, but are waiting for other reactions.
"I want to, frankly, see how some of the officials in the area that are going to be directly involved react to it,"  Commissioner Ken Creasy said.
Commissioner Merle Law agreed.
"I think it would be an insult to those officials to approve something with out asking them what they think,"  he said. "It will provide it a good tool for us to work toward the future. If you don't do something like this, you do it piecemeal — a stretch of road here, a stretch of road there. And when you put them all together nothing fits. You've got to have the picture before you start working on the pieces."
The county has no funds set aside for any of the recommended projects, Commission Chairman Fay Parrot said.
"The developers are going to have to help us out of it. We're going to look at the state and federal funds for it."

Please, don't sue Alex & Andy over what I wrote above


thenetwork

Of course, the only thing that came of it was a completed portion of Sawmill Parkway, which still has yet to reach Deleware.

Damn NIMBY's!!!   :pan:

Hot Rod Hootenanny

Quote from: thenetwork on October 28, 2011, 01:24:30 PM
Of course, the only thing that came of it was a completed portion of Sawmill Parkway, which still has yet to reach Deleware.

Damn NIMBY's!!!   :pan:
You forget the roads built between US 23 and Westerville. Took 15 years for Sawmill to get to Home rd.
Please, don't sue Alex & Andy over what I wrote above

vtk

Amazing how the growth was anticipated so accurately, yet so little was actually done.  "The developers are going to have to help us out of it."   Great idea.  Too bad local officials didn't have the power and/or the spines to say to developers, "Pay for these road improvements or you don't get to develop that land."
Wait, it's all Ohio? Always has been.

Hot Rod Hootenanny

I'd say "lack of spine," or more likely "bought off by the developers."
Please, don't sue Alex & Andy over what I wrote above



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