The real issue is not cost overruns but lack of consideration for the bigger picture. The brunt of the economic damage caused by these projects is typically not in cost overruns but in induced travel and reduction in the ratio of infrastructure per capita (i.e. sprawl). The cost overruns are one-time affairs; the physical damage is systemic.

 

While cost overruns are a legitimate issue, focusing on them to the exclusion of the more fundamental question of why we are overbuilding our highway network in the first place, is a symptom of the myopic America which gave birth to the Tea Party. Penny-wise, dollar-foolish, yada yada.

 

Not that the TP would be in love with the intensified federal oversight implicitly advocated for in the article. That part seems reasonable.

Decades of a highways-only transportation policy by ODOT are coming home to roost.  They built a system of roads & highways they can barely afford to maintain, much less expand or re-build. 

 

Money woes may gum up highway projects

By  Robert Vitale

The Columbus Dispatch Saturday January 14, 2012 5:52 AM

 

Future phases of Downtown highway reconstruction likely will be pushed back when the Ohio Department of Transportation updates its priorities list next week.

 

On Tuesday, ODOT plans to convene a nine-member panel that since 1997 has helped set the state’s road-building priorities.

 

Since taking office last year, Director Jerry Wray has said that Ohio’s plans are far too big for its budget.

 

The new plan going before the Transportation Review and Advisory Council will reflect “the state’s looming transportation funding crisis,” agency officials said yesterday.

Read more at: http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/01/14/money-woes-may-gum-up-highway-projects.html

Decades of a highways-only transportation policy by ODOT are coming home to roost.  They built a system of roads & highways they can barely afford to maintain, much less expand or re-build. 

 

Money woes may gum up highway projects

By  Robert Vitale

The Columbus Dispatch Saturday January 14, 2012 5:52 AM

 

Future phases of Downtown highway reconstruction likely will be pushed back when the Ohio Department of Transportation updates its priorities list next week.

 

On Tuesday, ODOT plans to convene a nine-member panel that since 1997 has helped set the state’s road-building priorities.

 

Since taking office last year, Director Jerry Wray has said that Ohio’s plans are far too big for its budget.

 

The new plan going before the Transportation Review and Advisory Council will reflect “the state’s looming transportation funding crisis,” agency officials said yesterday.

Read more at: http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/01/14/money-woes-may-gum-up-highway-projects.html

 

I'm sure the decision makers in Columbus will whack a bunch of Cleveland projects right off the top!

The problem is that we underpay for the cost of those roads. The way we've been able to afford continuing building more roads is on the expectation that there will be more gas tax dollars in the future to pay for them. That growth has stopped what with the Baby Boom generation retiring, the large Generation Y producing fewer vehicle-miles traveled than prior smaller generations, high fuel prices that have suppressed demand and increased fuel efficiency of vehicles.

ODOT says money for second Inner Belt Bridge may not come until the 2020s

Published: Tuesday, January 17, 2012, 6:00 AM

By Tom Breckenridge, The Plain Dealer

 

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Money for a second Inner Belt Bridge may not be available for 11 more years, throwing into question how traffic will flow through downtown Cleveland's most important artery beyond 2013.

 

ODOT Director Jerry Wray said Monday the state doesn't have the money to meet growing, unrealistic demand for dozens of big-ticket road and bridge projects across the state.

 

That means many of the projects -- the second Inner Belt Bridge included -- must be pushed out years beyond their original construction dates.

 

Read more at: http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2012/01/post_551.html

I wonder how quickly this gets the Turnpike lease discussion going...

I wonder how much fuel efficiency has to do with this. Cars in the 1980s and early 1990s were far more fuel efficient because they were lighter, but that was before high strength steel, air bags, crumple zones and a host of advanced but weighty safety features came into being. For instance, a 1995 Honda Civic HF could get 48/55 MPG, but the 2012 Honda Civic HF gets 41 MPG combined, an increase from 36 MPG for the HF for the last model cycle.[/img]

 

It's pretty much unchanged since the mid-1980s up until 2007 (see: http://www1.eere.energy.gov/vehiclesandfuels/facts/2007_fotw498.html). I suspect that, since 2007, the average fuel economy has gone up.

Sherm, I'm sorry. I meant to quote part of your message and respond to it. Instead I edited it. Please repost your message, including the chart you shared. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Yes, I'm going to bookmark that. I've been looking for that graph for a while. It confirmed my suspicions about the popularity of full-size trucks and SUVs, the fact that cars have gotten much heavier since the '90s and how people now think everything needs 300 horsepower and those phenomenons' effect on fuel mileage. The U.S. vehicle fleet has NOT improved its mileage since 1989, despite claims otherwise. Now, as Sherman noted, mileage may be up a tick since 2007.

Actually, that was my comment that mileage went up a tick since 2007, except it was in Sherman's message which I mistakenly edited.

Oh, no worries.

 

My main points to this were:

a. I wonder how much fuel efficiency has to do with this. Cars in the 1980s and early 1990s were far more fuel efficient because they were lighter, but that was before high strength steel, air bags, crumple zones and a host of advanced but weighty safety features came into being. For instance, a 1995 Honda Civic HF could get 48/55 MPG, but the 2012 Honda Civic HF gets 41 MPG combined, an increase from 36 MPG for the HF for the last model cycle.

b. This graph shows that miles driven has declined, but this could be attributed to the recession and high gas prices more so than fuel efficiency. While it's heartening to see people buy Ford Fiestas and Toyota Yaris', their mileage is subpar to what was had in the past - but these new cars are lightyears safer than those even ten years ago. For that reason, I'd never have an old car as a daily driver (see this: http://www.autoblog.com/2009/09/17/video-iihs-celebrates-50th-anniversary-by-crashing-modern-malib/). Even a ten year old car has radically different steel strengths than that of today.

 

An older post, but with graphs from 2008: http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2009/02/us-vehicle-miles-driven-off-36-in-2008.html. Shows a dip in driving, be great to see this updated with 2010-2011 statistics.

 

Link to the graph: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_pMscxxELHEg/SZ2FijNYHtI/AAAAAAAAEjo/9oQimHGTVQ8/s1600-h/MilesDrivenDec09Month.jpg

 

Some statistic from the FHA: For June 2011 compared with June 2010, American drivers drove 1.4% less, or 3.8 billion vehicle miles. For the fiscal year, that was off 1.1%, or 15.5 billon vehicle miles of 1,452.7 billion vehicle miles total.

Redirected this from the Columbus I-70/71 split thread....

 

WOW. I suppose this is what happens when an agency realizes it cannot afford to maintain what it already has. I am still very much supportive of tolling existing rural interstate highways, but you have the FHWA to blame for not allowing that to happen - without having the respective state agencies repay back the original construction bonds plus interest.

 

See also the Cleveland Inner Belt thread for a similar, major postponement.

 

ODOT is trying to keep every dollar it has for roads (part of the reason for the killing 3C passenger rail and denying the federal pass-through funds to the Cincy streetcar), and it's still not enough.

 

The Baby Boom is retiring. GenY doesn't have a woody for cars no matter how much the automakers trying to turn cars into rolling smartphones. And of course, high fuel costs and newly rising fuel efficiency also mean less fuel tax revenues.

 

There may be a push for a gas tax increase, but it's just a bigger pail to bail out a sinking ship. The gas tax is a dying revenue stream and it must be replaced -- preferably with something that acknowledges that, while driving and flying have stagnated, travel by buses and trains has gone up 30 percent so far in the 2000s.

Here's the info straight from ODOT. I assume this is public info, so I'll post in its entirety.

 

ODOT Outlines Looming Financial Crisis

 

COLUMBUS (Tuesday, January 17, 2012) – After a year of discussing the looming transportation financial crisis facing Ohio, the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) today released funding projections that could result in pushing back by decades some of the state’s largest construction projects.

 

ODOT staff made the recommendations during a presentation to the Transportation Review Advisory Council (TRAC), a bi-partisan group responsible for approving funding for the State’s largest transportation projects.

 

“Unfortunately, this is Ohio’s new reality. For far too long, previous administrations have added more and more to the list of TRAC projects knowing that there were more projects than funds available,” said ODOT Director and TRAC Chairman Jerry Wray. “Their poor planning has put us in the position of making the tough decisions and delivering the bad news to many communities throughout the state that there simply is not enough money to fund their projects.”

 

The TRAC is wrapping up a year-long process of receiving and reviewing applications for transportation funding projects throughout the state. The TRAC received 72 applications in 2011 for new transportation projects totaling nearly $10 billion. Planning, design and construction of various phases of additional projects totaling $2 billion is already underway. However, ODOT only has roughly $100 million per year to spend on new construction.

 

ODOT is funded completely with state and federal motor fuel tax and has seen that revenue shrink over the past several years. As vehicles become more fuel efficient and fuel consumption decreases, so does the amount of revenue generated to pay for Ohio’s infrastructure and create jobs.

 

“We know transportation is the lifeblood of Ohio’s economy and we cannot sit back and do nothing about this dire situation,” said Wray. “We are going to be looking at new and innovative ways to reduce costs and generate additional transportation funding.”

 

The TRAC now faces the daunting task of rejecting a portion of the applications for new funding, while ODOT must consider innovative or alternative funding sources to pay for the state’s growing infrastructure.

 

The nine-member Transportation Review Advisory Council was established by the Ohio Revised Code in 1997 and provides guidance for developing a project selection process for ODOT’s largest investments of more than $12 million.

 

For the full list please visit: http://www.dot.state.oh.us/trac/TRAC%20List/Recommended-DRAFT-TRAC-List-1-17-11.pdf

 

###

 

For more information, contact: Steve Faulkner, ODOT Press Secretary, at 614-644-7101, ​

[END]

 

My italics. A day of reckoning of sorts, but notice the state's need for "growing infrastructure" is assumed tautological. Meanwhile, the state's population and economy are growing at a sluggish pace. Until we take a critical view of the need for new projects, based primarily on ROI and secondarily on livability/sustainability metrics, this problem won't be fixed.

 

Hopefully whatever solutions they come up with will bake assessments of these metrics into future policy. Using tolls and a VMT tax, for example, to solve the identified revenue problem, would push users to make decisions which will reflect the economic usefulness of their trips (number and length) and the particular roads they use for them.

While the state's total population numbers are pretty stagnant, there is a major shift occurring within those numbers. ODOT's failure to acknowledge publicly in its statements or in its policies are a major economic threat to this state. Between GenY and the Baby Boomers, that's half of the state's population. And both are driving less, or will soon be, or will be leaving Ohio for places that accommodate their transportation needs.

There are ways to fund things. Higher driver license fee. Maybe raise that to $40  a year. Higher plate fee. I pay $63 a year. Raise that to about $150 year. Ky is over $200 a year. Take away the fee we pay per gallon and just make it a sales tax. There is ways. Some maybe painful, but will be worth saving 30 years on some projects to be completed.

Here's the video I took at last April's TRAC meeting, they've known this was coming for years, but our local media is too stupid to figure it out:

 

I'll give ODOT kudos on this one for finally coming out with the truth. It will be very interesting to see how this plays out on the national stage. I could see this is as foundation for an increase in the gas tax. A lot of Congressmen and Representatives have been reelected bringing road-building bacon. If we are serious about balancing budgets, the reality of doing that without raising taxes needs to be made far more clear.

If I was in charge of ODOT, keep the roads we got smooth and safe and bridges standing and that is about it, unless Ohio's population suddenly booms. 

^What's amazing is simply seeing ODOT's headquarters in person.  It's incredible that such a large office building is needed to administer road construction in a state that is building hardly any new roads.  I believe that building was built with funds raised by the late 90's Ohio gas tax hike, a much more optimistic period.  That tax hike is what permitted the FWW reconstruction to be built so quickly in Cincinnati, and now it looks like we were very lucky to get that built when we did. 

 

I think a gas tax hike is very risky, considering where the price of gas is -- right around what has proven over the last few years to be the fringe of causing demand destruction. When gas prices are at/near $3.50 per gallon, demand for driving seems to be stagnant. When it goes below, driving picks up. But when it approaches $4 per gallon, that's when people start consolidating trips or looking for alternatives. So if a gas tax causes the per gallon price to rise to a point where motorists round off the price to $4 in their head, or it actually reaches $4 per gallon, then it could cause demand destruction and actually result in no growth in gas tax revenues.

 

If I were a road-builder (be it a member of the Ohio Contractors Association or my bankers at ODOT), my suggestion would be to NOT make it a pay-per-use charge such as a gas tax hike, putting tolls on previously "free" roads, or even a vehicle-miles fee. Increase the license fee, or create something like the Ohio Transportation Pass which provides a pot of money for all transportation and could be used for travel on all modes without having to pay per trip. Instead, you pay in advance (yearly, monthly etc.) and get discounts as a frequent traveler. But paying in advance means that ODOT gets to plan its available revenues better, and not everyone will use every penny they paid for or possibly leave large sums unused (as is often the case with gift cards, for example), so ODOT gets extra revenue. But make it multi-modal, OK guys??

^What's amazing is simply seeing ODOT's headquarters in person.  It's incredible that such a large office building is needed to administer road construction in a state that is building hardly any new roads.  I believe that building was built with funds raised by the late 90's Ohio gas tax hike, a much more optimistic period.  That tax hike is what permitted the FWW reconstruction to be built so quickly in Cincinnati, and now it looks like we were very lucky to get that built when we did. 

 

 

It ties into a comment I've made when discussing the role of government.  Government can handle closed end projects, particularly with competetion, well enough.  Wars, Apollo, and the interstate highway system construction come to mind.

 

Where government becomes a potentially wasteful boondoggle that needs regular review, restraint, and refocus by cynical elected officials is where open ended projects are concerned.  Highway maintenance, peacetime defense procurement, and the ongoing space program come to mind.

Increasing things like license fees are highly regressive and don't factor in how much of the road system the driver actually uses.  For all its flaws, the gas tax is at least correlated with use to some level.  A mileage tax that's indexed to the weight of the vehicle is my preferred system, but this would have to be on top of existing taxes, with a reshuffling of the proportions between the other taxes.  After all, driving motor vehicles on the roads, no matter the fuel source, causes some level of damage to the road that must be accounted for.  Burning gas itself does not damage roads, but there are pollution externalities, military escorts of tankers and such that also need to be factored into the price which currently are not.  While nearly all local roads receive no gas tax dollars (state or federal), which is a huge distortion of the so-called "market for transportation", there should still be some non-user component to the funding of roads.  This is more to maintain the access they give to properties, easements for utilities, access for emergency vehicles and trash pickup, pedestrian and cycling access, etc. 

 

Of course the devil is in the details, and it becomes something of a bureaucratic quagmire to figure out what the proper ratios would be for gas taxing, vehicle mile taxing, and local non-driver taxing are.  For one thing, even though cars don't do much damage to roads compared to trucks, most of the space is filled with cars, whether driving or parking.  Space is a limited commodity, so that has to be factored in too.  Unmetered on-street parking is a tough one, because while those parking spaces aren't free by any stretch of the imagination, those who use them feel it's their god-given right to have it.  How to measure the mileage is another issue with GPS tracking and all the abuses possible there, or odometer tampering to get around the fees, even to how often and in what way is the mileage tax collected.  Local taxes should be geared towards maintaining an open right-of-way for vehicles, pedestrians, cyclists, etc., but should not be concerned with funding the construction and maintenance of excessive infrastructure to accommodate cars and trucks.  For most streets, this means maintaining the road bed of a certain width, keeping drains clear such, maintaining sidewalks, but not to pave 50 feet of asphalt with sizable curb and gutters.  Still, by taxing ALL the externalized costs of using the roads, it will help put the onus of paying to maintain the system on those using it the most, while not also discouraging the use of cleaner fuel sources. 

 

All that said, the thing that frightens me here is that ODOT is taking the same stance as most other highway departments in the country.  The "problem" to them is a lack of funding to keep building more and more highways.  There's no discussion about how our current pattern of development doesn't create enough value to pay for itself, which is what got us into this bind in the first place.  We've spent the last 60-some years building infrastructure and developments in a way that is incapable of paying to maintain its required infrastructure in the long-term.  We are now in the long-term, and those maintenance liabilities are coming due fast.  We've built so much infrastructure for such a dispersed population that we're only getting a fraction (generally less than 30%) of the required maintenance costs back through taxes.  But are agencies like ODOT saying we need to stop building highways to nowhere, with bypasses around nowhere?  Are they saying that roads and highways of a particular size need to have a certain density of use along them in order to pay for their maintenance?  Are they suggesting that more productive modes of transportation that increase value and rate of return should be implemented where appropriate?  Of course not.  All they care about is building more and bigger roads. 

Start charging state sales tax on top of the gasoline tax.

^What's amazing is simply seeing ODOT's headquarters in person.  It's incredible that such a large office building is needed to administer road construction in a state that is building hardly any new roads.  I believe that building was built with funds raised by the late 90's Ohio gas tax hike, a much more optimistic period.  That tax hike is what permitted the FWW reconstruction to be built so quickly in Cincinnati, and now it looks like we were very lucky to get that built when we did. 

 

 

"administer road construction" (of new roads) is not the only thing done in that building. Contrary to the popular opinion here, the bulk of ODOT's program is maintenance (resurfacing, bridge replacements, mowing, painting). Just last year (Calendar year 2011), ODOT let around 740 contracts for maintenance, new construction, bridge replacements etc. (this does not include supply contracts, research contracts, etc). A lot of time is required to administer the contracts, contractors, preliminary engineering and following the requirements of NEPA.  There is a whole slew of laws and regulations that ODOT has to comply with in its mission. A lot of effort is required of ODOT to properly plan for projects, including keeping records and analyzing such things as pavement conditions, sign reflectivity and bridge conditions across the state. Did you know that ODOT is considered a municipal storm water utility and thus has to inventory and map every storm sewer outfall along state R/W?

 

Also in that building is ORDC, and the ODPS (Ohio State Patrol, BMV, etc)

^What's amazing is simply seeing ODOT's headquarters in person.  It's incredible that such a large office building is needed to administer road construction in a state that is building hardly any new roads.  I believe that building was built with funds raised by the late 90's Ohio gas tax hike, a much more optimistic period.  That tax hike is what permitted the FWW reconstruction to be built so quickly in Cincinnati, and now it looks like we were very lucky to get that built when we did. 

 

 

The building that was there before was some kind of major sanitarium. It was the largest building under one roof in the Western Hemisphere when it was built.

I have some serious concerns with the potentiality of leasing out the turnpike.  I may be in over my head with most of this discussion, but it appears that Northeast Ohio would really be getting screwed if even a single cent of that money wasn't used to fix the roads here.

I have some serious concerns with the potentiality of leasing out the turnpike.  I may be in over my head with most of this discussion, but it appears that Northeast Ohio would really be getting screwed if even a single cent of that money wasn't used to fix the roads here.

 

Doesn't the turnpike extend beyond NEO?

The turnpike extends over the northern part of the state. I am completely against the idea of using the turnpike to fund projects in other parts of the state - the toll money that drivers pay on a specific portion of the road (e.g. the Ohio Turnpike) should stay within that roadway system.

 

For that same reason, you don't see funds being siphoned out of the Pennsylvania Turnpike to fund projects in Erie or Scranton.

 

I am supportive of the idea of building new roadways, but tolling them in rural areas with electronic transponders (e.g. EZ Pass) with Pay-by-mail options - which is done in Texas, Virginia and in many other states. Unfortunately, tolling existing interstates is still a ways off due to FHWA requirements that would force a state (e.g. Ohio) to pay back the original construction bonds that were federally financed with interest.

Start charging state sales tax on top of the gasoline tax.

 

If you are going to do that, I don't think Article XII, 5a would apply---or, if it did apply---start charging a corporate franchise tax on energy companies that do business in Ohio. Pennsylvania already does this and I believe it brings in around $200 million per year. Or, do both. And have it be multi-modal, not just the same old, same old...

I'll give ODOT kudos on this one for finally coming out with the truth. It will be very interesting to see how this plays out on the national stage. I could see this is as foundation for an increase in the gas tax. A lot of Congressmen and Representatives have been reelected bringing road-building bacon. If we are serious about balancing budgets, the reality of doing that without raising taxes needs to be made far more clear.

If I was in charge of ODOT, keep the roads we got smooth and safe and bridges standing and that is about it, unless Ohio's population suddenly booms. 

 

The "problem" to them is a lack of funding to keep building more and more highways.  There's no discussion about how our current pattern of development doesn't create enough value to pay for itself, which is what got us into this bind in the first place.  We've spent the last 60-some years building infrastructure and developments in a way that is incapable of paying to maintain its required infrastructure in the long-term.  We are now in the long-term, and those maintenance liabilities are coming due fast.  We've built so much infrastructure for such a dispersed population that we're only getting a fraction (generally less than 30%) of the required maintenance costs back through taxes.

 

Exactly, we already have more lane-miles to maintain than dollars to do the maintenance.    Out of necessity we will soon have to make decisions about which roads or lanes we will no longer maintain.

Area may resort to putting gravel on roads rather than paving.

 

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-02-03-gravel-roads_N.htm

 

Their was a more recent story about this but i couldn't find it again.

Pickaway County had some strange mission to make sure every road in the county was paved by 1983. There was only one road that they didn't get to by then -- that one got paved some time in the 2000s. It didn't matter that a lot of these roads only had 1-2 houses on them or that there's townships with only one or two businesses in the entire township. Those last road segments to get paved didn't even get any new houses on them after getting paved. There's no point in essentially paving people's driveways. Let some of 'em go back to gravel.

Paved bicycle routes and unpaved roads! 

How many construction job will be loss because of this? How many businesses and people will move out of state because of this? Did either of those come into the equation?  Do they even realize to get people to move to this state they need progression?

So what exactly IS getting done with the $100 million the newly-impoverished Mr. Wray claims to hold claim to for new projects?

^ I was thinking that myself. What did they collect in other years or new projects?

This from  a friend in that state up north:

 

Tonight Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder gave his State of the State address. There were few specifics regarding transportation, but he made three points:

 

1) He wants a re-writing of Public Act 51. Michigan's constitution requires that "at least 90%" of all transportation tax revenues must go to highways. P.A. 51 is a 60 year old law which specifies how the money is to be allocated- new road construction, maintenance, county and local roads, passenger and freight rail, transit, non-motorized transit, aviation and ports. This is a biggie. The governor has consistently been a supporter of public transportation, and reform of P.A. 51 is his best way to get more money to public transportation. Every public transportation advocate needs to get and stay on top of hearings on this and making sure our voices are heard.

 

2) He wants to create a new southeastern public transportation authority which would presumably merge the Detroit DOT and SMART (suburban) bus systems. D-DOT is funded by the City, which is expected to go into receivership this spring; SMART is funded by property tax millages, and it has been crippled by the collapse in real estate values.

 

3) He reiterated his support for a new international bridge at Detroit, but is now casting it as "not a bridge issue, but a jobs issue."

 

Note the first item...if that happened here it would be like Kasich calling for junking Article XII, 5a of the state constitution so we could spend MORE money on public transportation! And this guy is a Republican!!!

 

No doubt about it: We have the worst governor in the country.

 

 

 

 

 

Big announcement coming in the news tomorrow from ODOT about pullback of money awarded to projects but not yet under contract

Amazing news out of Michigan -- I can't think of a bigger indicator that its not the automoble capital of America anymore!

 

Oh, and I've been trying to come up with a metaphor to demonstrate the self-destructiveness of continually raising gas taxes to offset the structural decline of driving from retiring baby boomers and increasingly multi-modal GenY'ers. Combined, the two groups are half our population. The next batch of young people appears to be at least as interested in alternatives to driving everywhere as GenY. This predicament for ODOT is only going to get worse.

 

So my metaphor, which isn't the best, is that this is like a pizza shop trying to respond to decreasing business and revenue by putting fewer ingredients on their pizzas and charging more for them.

Amazing news out of Michigan -- I can't think of a bigger indicator that its not the automoble capital of America anymore!

 

You know, Marysville might really be it now. Tons of American cars are assembled in Canada and Mexico these days.

This does not bold well for any kind of light rail for the next 2 decades or so.

^IF a restructuring of state infrastructure revenue/spending is made AFTER Kasich is booted.  But I'm worried that the problem is too dire and the change will come in the next year or two. 

Gravel roads aren't "free",  they do require more routine maintenance than asphalt roads.

 

If the gas tax was properly indexed for inflation back when it was enacted, rather than a flat fee per gallon; we wouldn't have this funding crises. IMHO construction inflation and a funding source that was not indexed properly for inflation is the major cost for revenue shortfall (http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/nhcci/pt1.pdf CCI was 1.1 and above for 4.5 years or so, which ate thru a lot of funds and deferred a lot of maintenance.) Now coupled with declining VMT and improving mileage, the cost of deferred maintenance, it looks bleak. We still wouldn't have enough for new construction.

 

Hopefully we will see a "fix it first" policy out of ODOT. I can see the I-75 projects being scaled way back to just fixing congestion hotspots (e.g. adding exit only lanes between closely spaced interchanges and keeping the same alignment, since merging delays are the biggest cause of congestion on I-75)

So I heard something interesting at a public meeting last night, and this was coming from a DOTE engineer, that when the Paddock Road interchange on I-75 was reconstructed, ODOT specifically told the city that the bridge only needed to span six lanes and two shoulders because the roadway was not going to be widened during the bridge's life expectancy.

 

Between that time and now, plans were drawn up to widen the highway when ODOT specifically stated earlier that the roadway did not warrant widening. What occurred since that time? Did they come into a pile of cash that has now suddenly evaporated?

^ How could the busiest highway in Ohio not warrant widening?? I mean come on it's at almost 200,000 addt now. They choose to widen the loops around Columbus and around Cincinnati first????

^^ Yeah it seems they built everything for the suburbs and now that the time has come for some updates to urban interstates suddenly the money is gone.  If the beltways were jammed I'm sure they would be trying to come up with the money.

 

If truly nothing can be done for another 15-20 years then there are a lot of cheaper improvements that need to be considered.  Already mentioned are some auxiliary lanes and extended exit lanes (for example, I-75S to I-74W, the slowdown for the sharp curve on the ramp causes a backup on I-75).

 

Some other ideas:

Ramp metering should be added (having lived in Cali and Minn, both places where this is used, it really works) to keep traffic flowing at an efficient pace.

 

I also think traffic management systems could be used to divert thru traffic to 275.  It only takes about 40 min to go around on 275, the same route on 75 in traffic takes much longer than that.  Just have an overhead sign "I-75 Heavy Traffic, Thru traffic use I-275."

 

How hard could it be to put in bus only shoulders to encourage some transit ridership?

 

Or peak hour shoulder lanes with overhead open/closed lane arrows?  This can be done more safely if there is active monitoring.

See

 

There are a lot of little things that can be done which would all add up.  $10mil would go a long way.  Certainly a lot more bang for the buck than the $3 billion the rebuild is going to cost. I say they go ahead and cancel Mitchell and use the money for other improvements along the route.

 

 

 

My suggestions which I made at the public meetings included:

 

* Consolidated interchanges. Remove unnecessary ramps (pretty much what is being done now) and consolidate interchanges by improving capacity in the upgraded remaining access points.

* Acceleration/deceleration lanes that function as collector/distributor ramps. There is no need to have a 1500' merge lane that forces slower moving traffic into faster moving traffic. Just keep it going until the next interchange if feasible.

* Rework the Interstate 74 interchange into one that is higher capacity (what is currently being planned) and remove the Spring Grove ramps (currently being planned).

* Remove the awkward and unsafe left-hand ramps - like in the current design, and replace the Western Hills interchange. Unsure on the latter, since that is in coordination with the Brent Spence project and the DOTE/Western Hills Viaduct project.

 

etc. I would say that is more than a $10 million project, but it would eliminate the need for a continuous fourth lane.

They should move forward interchange-by-interchange making the necessary safety improvements, but without adding the extra lane to I-75.  New overpasses should be build to the current plan's specifications, however, so that if they find funding to add the extra lane in 10 years, all of the rebuilt overpasses and interchanges will allow for that.

^It's not that easy because part of the plan involved shifting the whole highway temporarily to allow the various lumps in the roadway to be regraded.  When the Covington cut was rebuilt in the early 90's, I remember them building basically a temporary I-75 parallel to the existing one to allow regrading (that's why the whole cut is so huge and odd-looking today).  This is on a smaller scale, but it's the somewhat erratic rises and falls of the old Millcreek Expressway that cause some of the safety problems.  You really notice it between Mitchell and the Lateral. 

Front-page - above the fold in today's Sunday Dispatch: the "Big D" moans about the costs of delaying highway projects and never mentions how the current administration scuttled the 3C passenger rail project and has cut funding for mass transit and bike/ped projects....all of which can help relieve the need for new capacity on our highways and reduce the costs of getting around for all Ohioans by increasing their mobility options.

 

The Dispatch supported Kasich / Wray's transportation decisions editorially by criticizing the 3C project and knocking streetcar projects in Columbus & Cincy in the past.  But now they cry because a highway project is delayed.

 

State’s roadwork delay will cost drivers

State’s braking on road projects will cost drivers in crashes, wasted gas in traffic

By  Robert Vitale

The Columbus Dispatch Sunday January 22, 2012 7:33 AM

 

State government will spend less money in the short term by taking four times as long to rebuild overburdened highways in central Ohio.

 

You, however, will pay. Drivers will lose more time, waste more gas and face more hazards in coming years because the Ohio Department of Transportation is pushing back more than $840 million in roadwork that’s scheduled for the region.

 

What ODOT had planned to tackle between 2014 and 2016  now is to start in 2019 and at dates as far off as 2033.

 

Read more at: http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/01/22/states-roadwork-delay-will-cost-drivers.html

What buttheads at the Dispatch. If they wonder why things are as bad as they are, they need only to look in the mirror at themselves! They should have seen this coming, but no. They could have helped with the questions concerning the 3C debate, Columbus streetcar and any number of other issues, but again, no. All they cared about was doing whatever it took to make sure more Republicans were elected and that the "highway-uber-alles" continuum remained firmly in place, no matter that such stances might hurt the state.

 

A Bronx cheer to you, Dispatch!!! Bwaaaa!!!  :x