Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance

City of Columbus involvement?

I was unable to attend the Public Hearing Thursday night, but I take it that it didn't go well. Where is this additional light going to be placed? What I've been hearing is that once the restriping goes into effect, service from Tussing Road and 204 will be decreased, as if this service wasn't bad enough to start with. Which Pickerington city council member will declare publicly that this configuration will work best for him?

I was unable to attend the Public Hearing Thursday night, but I take it that it didn't go well. Where is this additional light going to be placed? What I've been hearing is that once the restriping goes into effect, service from Tussing Road and 204 will be decreased, as if this service wasn't bad enough to start with. Which Pickerington city council member will declare publicly that this new configuration will work best for him?

The problem with decreased service from Tussing Road to 256 N is that there are developments at that intersection that will suffer further. The strip mall on the west side of 256 that used to hold Four Bakers, CVS Pharmacy and Edward Warren Jewelers, along with others, no longer have these stores. Across Tussing Road are hotels, a Montana Mining Company, Wendy's, Cracker Barrel and others. Have these developers been involved in these decisions? ODOT could be forcing out income for the PLSD and giving it to Reynoldsburg, at the request of the Wal-Mart developer. I didn't even mention the thousands of homes off of Tussing Road that are owned by people who need to get to work in Columbus in order to do their holiday shopping at Wal-Mart. Speaking as one of them, living in Park Place East with 880 homes, I would rather shop at Wal-Mart, but if Wal-Mart makes it difficult for me, I'll shop at Meijer. Meijer actually has a better selection.

I have also heard that Postage is trying to get out of paying Pickerington?’s share of the improvements, after he staged a publicity stunt to claim ownership of the project. Sounds like business as usual to me!

bumper to bumper

Gee, tough choice ODOT controlling traffic lights or the City of Pickerington controlling them. Is the result any different?
Neither
seem
too capable.

Developer contribution

William,

I also sit on the review council that Lisa Ross talks about. She isn't pulling any punches. The annual meetings which we attend are a matter of public information, so I am sure you could contact Reynoldsburg or Violet Township and see the documentation of the developer. In my opinion, the developer has been very diligent about what their expectations were, gathering and sharing information about what actually IS happening (what money is being collected and where it is going), and what their new projections are. I don't think it is any suprise or mystery that the developer saw a need for better traffic flow to their shopping center and looked for a way to make it happen.

I do however disagree that the developer should pay the entire price for the project. It is not the fault of the developer that a percentage of travelers from Pickerington and Reynoldsburg use SR256 to access 70 in the mornings and evenings. This project allows a modicum of better flow for more that people going to WalMart.

I was unable to attend the public hearing on the 10th, and am very concerned to hear that access from Tussing Rd. is being negatively impacted or restricted. I will make a point to see a copy of the plan so that I may form my own opinion. I would not like to see the Turnberry Plaza and Winderly shopping centers having their access even more limited, because lets face it, Pickerington did a TERRIBLE job of traffic flow with both those areas. (I don't know who engineered those parking lots and their access, but they should never have been allowed to be built that way.)

I am not aware of what decision the Township has made regarding funding any of the project, but there is a trustees meeting on Wednesday at 7:30 pm in the Township Administration Office. I think that we all contribute to the problem and we should all contribute to the solution, which I intend to tell the trustees on Wednesday.

Stephanie Brobst

A few assumptions that are made

I see that a few assumptions have been made regarding Pickerington's involvement in this project.

First of all Pickerington did not inititate this project they were brought in after the engineering had been done. Key issue....The project was not intended to fix the access to I -70 for Pickerington and Violet Township residents, why would Reynoldsburg and the Developer pay to fix aditional problems that are not created in their jurisdiction? The project is to improve traffic flow under the bridge. Of course part of that flow goes to I-70. Part of that flow exits I-70 and the ramp is beginning to back up onto I-70 as the flow resticts the ramp flow. ODOT takes this pretty seriously as it created the SR 204 exit when the 256 ramp began to back up onto I-70 during rush hour.The access to 70 issue does need to be addressed in my view and SHOULD have been a top issue for city and Township officials beginning several years ago. If they had been proactive when the developer approached them with his plan, they would have already had a plan to meld with the developers plan. Apparently they do not have a plan to meld with this plan, could they develop one, who knows but they should attempt to do so and bear the costs, I say they... Violet and Pickerington.

The city and township have been invited to help solve the flow problem under the bridge by a proactive municipality and developer who widened their roads before the development occured to increase the traffic flow. The widening project will occur on City of Pickerington land under the bridge. They could have just let it go and WAIT until the city/Violet acted. I think they knew they would be waiting a long time. On the City/Violet side the opposite has occured as the developement has overwhelmed the roads and we keep bringing more on without an effective solution to manage the traffic now or in the future.

Improved flow under the bridge beneifits Township and city residents. Any tax benefits received by future development in the Violet Township portion of this project that is not in the TIF area benefits city residents too as the city is part of Violet and the Excellent fire and emergency services we are all blessed with is the chief recipient of the taxes generated by this development revenue. I can understand that the Trustees may hesitate to contribute to the project in light of the fact that Reynoldsburg is possibly going to remove this land from Violet and the revenue and any future revenue would be lost. Additionally, they had to choke down a 30 year TIF on a large part of the future revenue in a large part of this area, an area that has dramatically increased the workload for the fire department with little return to cover these costs in the short term. They had to accpt the TIF without a vote, unlike the Reynoldsburg school district, who had a vote on the TIF and which received land and buildings from the city and they get half of the income tax generated from the TIF area employment. Violet gets none.

But the Trustees must realize that any improvement here would benefit all residents of the township that must fight this traffic nightmare on a daily basis. It will also assist the fire service to pass through this bridge area in a safer manner because often now they have to go into the opposite lane to get through the bridge area because of the congestion. It appears to be an unsafe thing to have to do.

I think the city and township should contribute and get off their collective butts to improve the developer's plan to address the addtional access issues even if it costs them more money.I can;t think of any other problem our area has that is more aggravating and possibly life threatening to our families than this traffic situation. The get mine first attitude must take a back seat to common sense and the benefit of the public.