I’m a little late on this, but I thought it was worth noting:
Gov.-elect John Kasich names Jerry Wray head of Ohio Department of Transporation, same job he held during 1990s
Published: Tuesday, November 30, 2010, 7:50 PM
Updated: Wednesday, December 01, 2010, 1:22 PMCOLUMBUS, Ohio — Gov.-elect John Kasich tapped Jerry Wray Tuesday as the next director of the Ohio Department of Transportation, returning Wray to the job he held during the 1990s under Republican governors George Voinovich and Bob Taft.
…”We’re going to be looking at the program and making sure it is the right size and trying to review it from the viewpoint of safety, economic development and, of course, congestion relief,” Wray said.
Wray also said the $150 million that current Gov. Ted Strickland in October promised to give to city transit systems in Ohio over the next three years also might be in jeopardy.
…Wray also agrees with Kasich on scrapping the planned 3C passenger train championed by Gov. Ted Strickland and outgoing ODOT director Jolene Molitoris. The federal government has already promised to give Ohio $400 million for the project to link train service between Cleveland and Cincinnati.
But Kasich said the “high speed” train would be too slow and expensive for Ohio to maintain beyond the start-up seed money from the federal government. He wants to use the $400 million for other purposes.
…After retiring from ODOT in 1999, Wray later became vice president of Flexible Pavements of Ohio, an asphalt industry lobbying association.
Politics as usual and it’s certainly not limited to Rs. The I-70/71 split had two ODOT employees who were working on the project switch over to becoming city employees (Hassan Zahran is one of them who I saw presenting the split at a Franklinton meeting and later at city council as a city employee) who just so happened to also end up handling the it. Hell, Coleman appointed Mark Kelsey to head the transportation department and he couldn’t be more anti-urban & pro-asphalt.
The fact that the state level official is so obviously biased is rather irrelevant, since all three of the Cs don’t have a pro-mass transit bent even among urban populations. Just look at how much pro-streetcar Cincinnati residents have had to push and look at what happens in Columbus where the streetcar gets shot down, no one blinks twice at adding street level highways on the split with a $1.7 billion price tag, etc. Combine that with all of the ODOT employees who have infiltrated our city government (and that’s likely the case for the other Cs) and you get an apathetic urban public who is fine with throwing all of our money (which we don’t have) at roads and like suburbanites they get all huffy and puffy over anything spent on mass transit. If you think the new ODOT director has a conflict of interest there’s plenty worse going on at other levels of government…
Those of who are from urban areas and support betting them will have to come to the realization that the state of Ohio will not do much of anything on issues concerning core cities or inner ring suburbs. The state legislature is dominated by rural and outer suburb types who are not interested in doing anything for our issues and are represented by Republicans who get a lot of their campaign contributions for the highway contractors.
In short, depsite the fact that 80% of Ohioans live in urban areas, we are being left out at the state level. I think it’s time for us to look at alternatives which will circumvent the state government to find solutions to our issues and problems.
We do have a few aces to play. Most local city governments, MPO’s and other organizations are dominated by Democrats and no amount of Republican redistricting at the state level will easily change that. What we have to do is start finding ways for these urban entites to work together on a common agenda.
Forming a Joint Powers Authority to oversee the development of intercity rail passenger service, regional and feeder bus routes and urban transit is a goo d way to tie these urban areas together. The formation of a bloc such as this will also create an alternative to rural and highway dominated state government.
The ultimate goal would be to reform the state government and by joining urban interests into a cohesive group with an agenda will push the balance of power in our favor over time.
I think we have to take a good look at this.
The easiest ace you have to play is to leave Ohio. Lots of people have done it already. Just move to a place where people value urban areas and let the rural townies and unorganized democrats keep killing Ohio’s cities.
An asphalt lobbyist? Only in Ohio. Unreal.
[...] financed by an oil company and how COAST endorsed a gubernatorial candidate who promptly placed a former asphalt industry lobbyist as director of the Ohio Department of Transportation, one doesn’t need to look far to realize [...]