Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance

Odot wants access at Pickerington Road due to it's connectivity north and south. The City and Township want access at Allen Road for economic development. ODOT says that to make Allen road work additional roadway work is needed which the locals will have to fund. The obvious solution which is not on the table is a the construction of a split diamond with half at Allen Road and the other half at Pickerington Road. The two halfs are then connected with a frontage road or roads which avoid the railrod and adjacent homes and provide improved access to the surrounding lands for development. The design concept has been found to be acceptable by ODOT on other similar proposals on SR 8 north of Hudson and up at Polaris and I do not believe the locals were required to fund any of the cost. Ask ODOT for clarification.

All parties interested in developing a win win solution for the access to US 33 should consider the above and request its consideration or a variation of the concept (ie a partial trumpet at Allen to the north and a half diamond at Pickerington connected only on the north side of 33 to avoid the railroad and sensative areas south of 33) by ODOT.

Spread the news this can work. It does not have to be one way or the other.

Tell Me More

OK - I'm going east on Rt. 33. Can I get on & off N & S on Pickerington Rd ?

Same question for Allen Rd.

If I can only go north - how do people living south gain Rt. 33 access ??

I think that Pickerington Rd. as is would need improved as well. If we want commercial development it would need to be on something other than 2 lane country roads - right? Otherwise we'll have Busey Rd. all over again with the Construction Traffic replaced with Commercial Traffic. Bottom line the roads as they are would fall apart.

Clarification

Yes you can go north and south on Pickerington Road and North on Allen road as you can today. More clearly if you are headed towards Lancaster. the southbound exit would be at Pickerington Road. The southbound entrance would be at Allen Road. You would use the parallel new frontage road system to get between the two and to access adjacent lands. If going northbound on 33 you would exit at allen road and enter at Pickerington road. Again you would use the new frontage roud sytem to get between the two. Essentially you would have one interchange serving two roads. The interchange would simply be streached out over a longer distance. As the prior posting stated this has been done before and is acceptable to ODOT. Existing developed areas can be spared and the new development can occur off of the new frontage roads without impacting other existing roads such as Busy.

Who's plan is this?

I am seeing a plan being discussed here but who's plan is it? Is this the Offical ODOT plan? Is this the US 33 alliance Plan or is this a private citizen's plan? Will these optional plans be available at the ODOT meeting on June 26th?

I also have concerns about cutting Pickerington road off. I am afraid that once that road is cut off from US 33 we will never be able to convert any of that residential property north of there into commerical development. There is still some open farm land. I am sure a medical complex, education buildings, and other clean type commercial properties could be plugged into that area. If they have no access to US 33 then it will surely stay residential.