Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance

Yes They Did

Stilson did do their job. The city screwed up by getting their lawyers involved. I'll bet the city paid more in legal fees than in fines. It was a witch hunt designed to hurt Stilson from the start. Another poor decision by the political management at city hall. If you let the manager, developement director, and consulting engineer do their jobs, we wouldn't have to read the crap we do in the local papers.

By Stilson Supporter

Studies were done

I think to understand the issue we must look at the Pickerington access management plan, because it is more of a concept plan than and an actual nuts and bolts plan to follow and to strictly adhere to over the next 20 or so years. The plan will be implemented as the properties along 256 and Diley Road develop or redevelop. The plan was put together for the most part by the City Engineer (Stilson) and the Zoning Director. It was approved by the Service Committee and then the Council.

Common sense will tell you that trying to predict the future in 2005 for what may be needed in 2015 is going to be more about perception and less about what may come to the City in terms of commercial development. As each one of these parcels of land begin to develop they will each present different challenges to the city and its traffic problems. The over all goal will be to build parallel routes for 256 and Diley road over the next 20 years and to limit as many accesses onto 256 as possible.

Sometimes in the case of the Drug Mart we will need to be patience to allow the properties adjacent to the Drug Mart to begin to develop to get a good fix to the access problems presented to us by this development. Clearly that small strip mall is doing well and that is healthy for the commercial tax base of the City and the School District. We can?’t simply take that from them without huge amounts of compensation. The City has been negotiating with the Drug Mart and the other tenants to resolve the issues presented. The City is utilizing the services of Stilson in this effort and other staff members. The City has been requiring traffic impact studies to be done now BEFORE these developments are approved. I can?’t speak to approvals prior to my direct involvement in the process but I doubt that the Drug Mart would have been approved and placed in the situation that it now finds itself under today?’s standards and requirements.

The new mall at the NW corner of Diley and 256 had months of scrutiny before being approved. It was being negotiated at the same time the access management plan was being developed. I understand those that are worried about even more traffic being dumped out onto 256. This development is allowing the city to develop parallel routes to 256 in the future and to limit the access from 256. We must wait until the other property owners agree to or begin to develop their adjacent properties.

The speed limit reduction on 256 was initiated in Safety Committee. I was not willing to support the reduction until they had worked with ODOT and the city and the proper traffic studies were done to justify their actions. One over riding safety factor that was argued was the police officer that directed traffic out in front of PYAA during events at that facility. Now we all may think reducing the speed limit is a bad decision but I would hate to oppose the reduction and find one of our officers either killed or injured while standing in the middle of 256. Mr. Smith has agreed to have Safety look at the number of accidents next fall to see if the reduction actually reduced the crashes. I have also been assured that when we widen that section of 256 to five lanes we will again review the speed limit.


By Ted Hackworth