So how long before the retail development follows the residential and starts to put Polaris out of business just like Polaris did to Northland? History keeps repeating itself, but I don’t think anyone is learning from it.
Rts. 36/37 near sunbury
Drivers honk for study of I-71 exit
Delaware County funds half of $120,000 look at interchange
Friday, August 7, 2009 3:09 AM
By Jane Hawes
FOR THE COLUMBUS DISPATCHSUNBURY, Ohio — Motorists who get on and off I-71 each day at Rts. 36/37 don’t need a $120,000 study to tell them the interchange is a mess. But they’re hopeful that a study, to be funded by private and public sources, will eliminate the long waits and dangerous backups at Exit 131.
…At a meeting yesterday, Delaware County commissioners voted to spend $40,000, the maximum they can use from a federal program administered by the Ohio Department of Development, to help pay for an independent engineering study of the interchange. The county also committed $20,000 from elsewhere in the budget. The study is expected to be done early next year.
Delaware Economic Development Director Gus Comstock said the balance will come from private donors. Among them: Patrick Shively and Bob Weiler, whose NorthStar development is northwest of the interchange, and the Columbus Crew, which is still considering building a practice facility in the area.
Weiler said he’s happy to help. “The ones who are funding it are the ones who need the access.”
The study will analyze the interchange as it exists — a failure by Ohio Department of Transportation standards for wait times. The study will then examine and recommend possible solutions, said Comstock, including the addition of exits either north or south of the site.
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I don’t doubt that it’s congested and the crash rate is high, but I don’t understand why nobody does anything to stop new development that creates these conditions. How far do we let it go? Marion? Mansfield? Ashland? Cleveland will probably get to Ashland first though. Should we just have one giant conurbanation along I-71? Do we really want it to be like I-95 on the east coast? No doubt I’m overreacting, but I’m just tired of seeing auto-centric development that isn’t paying the full costs of its impacts and isn’t planning for any transit access. Sure, Weiler is pitching in for the cost of the study, but who do you think will pony up $30 Million plus for the actual construction? This whole system is just a waste of land, money, natural resources, and time.
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Why am I not surprised to see Bob “The Freeways are our mass transit” Weiler involved in this?
There is a difference between saying that an improved interchange is needed and an interchange that will service potential developments (NothStar). That being said, why so much anger with more developments farther out? Many people live outside of Franklin county, but are in the central Ohio region. I won’t visit the Crew or another mall that far north. I don’t think I’m alone in that sense. If Bob Weiler wants to bet millions on another north side mall, good luck.
My problem is when we all are expected to pay for developers’ pet projects. Don’t expect my family to pony-up for the mega-interchange necessary for another mall. Build it, and if it is successful, we’ll talk.
To be fair, I don’t think there are any public plans for a new shopping mall. When I say, “The Next Polaris?” I mean there will be more acres of relatively low density single use zoning, including new strip malls like those on Polaris/Sawmill/etc that will compete with existing strip malls and result in acres of vacant greyfields that are not easily adaptable to new uses.
My annoyance about development farther out is that it is simply a waste of valuable and rich farm land, it degrades water quality and environmental habitat, and it requires huge new investments in infrastructure when we already can’t afford to maintain what we have.
I would like to see more orderly and planned growth in walkable, multi-modal nodes instead of just plopping down tract housing and strip malls wherever the developers can make a quick buck. We really need some regional transit like this to make this happen.
If you live in Delaware there are anly a few routes you can take to get into Columbus. It makes for a challenging and dangerous commute. I do not want another Polaris intersection but having to sit in lane 3 at a stop waiting to get to the exit ramp while lanes 1 and 2 zip by at 65+ MPH is dangerous.
Right. I’m not complaining about the transportation improvement. I’m complaining about the inevitable sprawl that will follow because local governments suck at land use planning. It should be possible to improve roads without paving over everything within a mile, but it doesn’t seem to work that way.
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