Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance

Tight turns

Stephanie

I believe you were the lady school bus driver complaining about the tight turns down at the old four way stop in Pickerington. I believe your fellow drivers will face an even greater problem trying to get your buses through and under the I-70 bridge. They are not widening the opening. They are using exsiting berm and repainting the lines. They will have 11 foot lanes to drive 50 MPH on. How do you propose to pass a straight bed truck turning onto I-70 west bound and you have a dump truck on your right side? If you break down under the bridge there is no berm to use your starter to get the bus out of the path of the approaching traffic. If you do have an accident then how does the safety services get to you? This isn't a good thing. Clearly the Violet Township Fire department records most of their calls in this area. How in the world are they going to get through if it is solid vehicles?

I would much rather tell ODOT to do it right and do it now. They have ignored this area of Northern Fairfield county for over 35 years now. Maybe it is our turn to demand they actually fix the interchange. If you are going to put more lanes under the bridge then they must open up and set back the bridge abuttments to allow for a safety lane. We are the fastest growing area in Ohio and we should demand some help from ODOT. Maybe we should be writing our elected leaders. Clearly they are giving us the raw deal down on US 33 so here on I 70 they want us to wait for 7 years. How many people will die in that time? Will it take a death or some other emergency to make them act?

Please before you stamp your approval on this realignment takes some time to look at what they are doing. They are lieing to people saying they are widening 256. They only plan to put about a foot of new asphalt in some sections of the approaches to the interchange. They also plan to place two new traffic signals. We all know how good they work at Brice Road.

By William

Turnberry shoppes access issue

A few years ago in a city service committee meeting a discussion was held about cutting a road by the then CVS building down to the light that is at the Winderly access point to Tussing Road. What happened to that plan?

Of course there is not TIF here so Pickeringoton cannot make the future school revenue pay for the road. The access is so bad and dangerouis here, I am sure it is a partial cause and reason for the businesses who left this area to leave.Edward Warren even said such on his announcement flyer about his move to Cross Creeks.

Wouldn't this be a great time to cut that road since the bridge is closed and any construction activity in the area would be less impacting because of less traffic?

What I see the city doing is building roads and infrastucture in TIF areas, including a road to nowhere for Daryl Berry at Town Square. All this in and effort said to be for the purpose of ''attracting business to the city'' Well why doesn't the city take better care of the business that is already here, like the Turnberry Shoppes location? That would be good business in my book, pay back the people who butter your bread first and quit whoring with community resources and diverting school taxes for developer profits via the increased valuation on the land that they own.

This is a developer boondoggle, especially if you are your favorite developer DB.

Death and Dismemberment

I have to navigate the I-70 area like most of the rest of you and I am appalled by the congestion. But I also have to navigate Columbus Street when school traffic is there. You have Heritage Elem/Middle/Whatever it will be called, High School, with its inexperienced drivers and Junior High drop offs and pick ups half filled busses galore and just us simple folk stuck having to go though there to earn a living. Move some of those people up to the I-70 corridor with 11 foot lanes, our new commemorative City vehicle (the extremely large dump truck with the back hoe trailing behind, school busses, your average angry driver trying to get somewhere in a hurry while communicating their whole life over the cell phone, the emergency vehicle traffic which is on the increase in that area and a 16 year old ?“I AM INVINCIBLE?” driver and you have a recipe for death and dismemberment.

It will happen in quaint picturesque oldE Pickerington or it will happen near the I-70 interchange ?– but it WILL happen. Someone will die or be seriously injured. Then will they look back and say that cramming 10 pounds of you-know-what in a 5 pound bucket was a good idea? 11 foot lanes with some turning and some not and all the lights everywhere that just bottleneck it further is a good idea?

We require better and safer access and we require it NOW! Mr. Shaver often refers to stopping the bleeding. Is this PR reelection stunt by Postage at I-70 waving a band aid at catastrophic hemorrhaging?

Demand better of those that supposedly serve us. Take action citizens if you don?’t agree that this issue will be resolved or improved by installing funnels. Remember your basic physics. What happens when you take many rapidly moving objects and force them through a funnel!




By Road Rage??

Wal-mart developer accept blame?

-Did the traffic study take place during a normal workday between 7am and 8:30am? Or was the study conducted during normal SHOPPING hours?
-Was the study conducted during the Tussing Road bridge closure? 17,000 vehicles per day cross that bridge when it is open. Many PLSD residents access I-70 via 256. An elementary school is located on Tussing Road, with parents needing safe access to I-70.
-The study showed that 80% of the traffic traveling north on 256 from Pickerington turns onto I-70W. How does adding another traffic signal improve the flow of traffic? (The answer is it doesn't.)
-Is it ODOT's responsibility to make sure Wal-mart makes its money?
-Does anybody care that it will be even more difficult for employed residents of the Pickerington Local School District to make it to work in the morning?

The proposed ''fix'' to the 256/I-70 interchange will cause serious injury/fatality accidents during rush-hour congestion. It is set up to fail. There will be narrower lanes, with no berm underneath the I-70 bridge. Emergency vehicles will either not be able to get through, or have to travel the wrong way on 256. Even fender-benders will clog traffic because there will be no place to pull over. A stalled vehicle will create chaos. With an additional light between 204 and I-70W, more traffic will sit in the 204 intersection, particularly since the Tussing Road bridge will be open at that time. When the light turns red during rush hour, it just means hurry up and sit in the middle of the intersection. This happens in all directions at the intersection.

-Since the Wal-mart developer initiated the ''improvement'', will they also accept the liability? Will the city of Reynoldsburg? Will the city of Pickerington? Will ODOT?

ODOT needs to fix the entire interchange, not put a band-aid on a gushing wound.

By PLSD resident employed in Col.