Time for one of those “put up or shut up” moments on my part. While campaigning and times thereafter, I said the elected body of any entity should never consider themselves smarter than those they represent and when appropriate, come out and ask constituent help in finding answers.
For those of you that caught the article in the Eastside Messenger, you read my comments on one facet of the situation in the general area of I-70 and SR 256. This is an area shared by many. It is the city’s sole access to the freeway but adjacent areas like Columbus and Violet Township share it and share our pain. So what should we do about it? The State is studying the area right now looking for answers to deal with the traffic that will be generated by development behind the Holiday Inn Express (Side note – this is very desirable commercial development for our city.) and the opening of the new Target store north of the freeway. The State is also studying the Adaptive Control System (ACS) that we have installed on our lights along 256 and continue to complete Phase 2. They think that including all lights under their control might be a plausible improvement. This will include all lights up 256 to Slate Run in Reynoldsburg, if I heard our engineers correctly. This move would place all lights feeding the 256/I-70 interchange under the control of software and not humans.
Back to shared pain. The city is responsible for plowing most of the area in question. ODOT shares some of it, Columbus a little and Violet some. Violet has no traffic lights in the area, ODOT has 4 under their control and some sort of combination of Reynoldsburg and ODOT those north of I-70. ODOT controlled lights are programmed manually in our city and I can’t really speak to those north of I-70. What we seem to have is a combination of human and software control and they are not playing well together.
This situation has come to light under numerous scenarios in the past. Early in my term on Council, as a member of the Service Committee we worked with ODOT to see the improvements near the interchange that mostly resulted in more lanes. At that time, we agreed to let ODOT take control of some of the city lights so that they could program them to allow a smooth flow of cars onto the freeway in the morning and off it in the evening. The caveat in the agreement was that we could take control of those lights back whenever we wanted. A question I am often asked is shall we take them back now?
Much of this came to light (no pun intended) again after the city safety committee directed the city manager to install a no turn on red during restricted hours sign on southbound 256 at Tussing Road. This directive has generated more discussion in the last couple of weeks that our Issue 14 has. It is apparently within the purview of the committee, under our city code, to direct staff to install signage like this. I believe the directive was in an attempt to curb bad behavior of motorists we have all seen each and every time we are near the freeway. In this case, motorists are making the right on red in the afternoon/evening rush hour and blocking northbound motorists trying to turn left onto Tussing and thus stranding them in the intersection and causing danger and more congestion.
I presume the committee thought that if the southbound traffic was held by the no turn on red sign it would allow the intersection to be clear enough to not strand northbound motorists in the intersection. What committee apparently did not know was that ODOT was studying the intersection aiming to make other changes that would also have an effect on the actions caused by installing this sign. The sign has been removed pending further study by ODOT.
During this arduous process we heard from a Columbus resident in the Tussing area speaking on behalf of what I have previously called the greater Pickerington community. They reminded us that we cannot fail to take into account the several thousand residents living along our borders and sharing our roads. While I have only heard from a few township residents, the general consensus is that we should always keep them in our thoughts when making decisions on our shared roadways.
Anyway, I am really starting to ramble. Let me go back to my opening statement. What can we do to improve the traffic situation at the freeway?
· We can stop turns on red anywhere we can substantiate the decision with a traffic study or accident data, etc.
· We can take control of the lights back from ODOT, but we cannot afford to add them to the ACS anytime soon. If we wait to see if ODOT is going to add them to our ACS it will be about a year before we have an answer, as they face the same money challenges the city does.
· We can ask all of you to contact your state elected officials to begin the far east freeway improvements they now don’t plan to address for at least another 10 years.
· We can just sit by and do nothing and let people fend for themselves. You know, sort of the survival of the fittest in driving in and out of our city. Don’t laugh, doing nothing is almost always an option if doing something only causes a problem to shift to another area.
· We cannot legislate against bad decisions by motorists always seemingly in a hurry.
And also we can do what I am putting into practice here. We can ask you what you think we should do. You all have to navigate this treacherous area once or more a day like the rest of us. You all have opinions on what would make things better. Time to tell me – I am listening. If your comments are well thought out and easy to understand, I will submit them to our traffic engineers for input. I will also let our safety and service committees know what you propose as I feel that any actions in this area merit eyes on of both committees.
So with that being said, I will open up the floor to comments and suggestions. I have not received any comments on any of my other posts and might not here either, but at least I did what I said I would and asked.
Respectfully,
Mitch O’Brien
