Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance

I am beginning to have some second thoughts about a few things that I might have said in the past. It has been building for a couple of weeks now with the issue of the Pickerington?’s downtown traffic. While many seem to be complaining about the wait time to get on I-70 in the mornings, I am having problems with how and why the city has botched the traffic flow through the middle of town.

I understand that in 1997 they started talking about building that downtown bypass. It would connect Hill Road just north of the Conrail Line to East Columbus Street. I drove down the ?“Hill Road Connector?” and it dead ends with no other purpose but to sit there and wait for something that I am not yet fully aware of yet. I understand this has cost us $750,000 for this short little road extension that goes no where. Why did the city build it? This road and all this asphalt just lays there doing no-one any good. If they are waiting to but more property to complete the project then why commit our funds to build a road to no-where? Couldn?’t those funds have been put to better use until the full right-away was purchased?

For years, we have endured the bottle neck at the four-way stop. In the evenings if you were heading south you had long wait times because of the people making that left turn onto West Columbus Street heading to Baltimore. Just before this last election (July 2001) the city closed this intersection for renovations. I understand that since its completion they spend around a million dollars. The idea was that they would put some pretty bricks along the side of the road and they could qualify for a grant. I have heard that this grant amounts to nearly $125,000.

A couple weeks ago I joked about the inexperienced School Bus drivers not being able to make that turn without hitting the curb. Well I tried to make that same turn yesterday and some woman had stop in front of the stop bar and I couldn?’t make the turn without hitting the curb. Sure enough I knocked the hub cap of the rear tire of my mini-van. I went back to retrieve it but it was too far gone and bent that it wouldn?’t stay on the wheel. So now I must wait until my wife takes the van and blame it on her for losing the hub cap. Hub cap Annie here she comes.

Now I no sooner get around the turn and go back and pick up my hub cap and head north again and I get caught in another traffic jam. The damn train was coming through town doing about 5 miles per hour. I am normally a calm person but I did reach that point yesterday that I almost went POSTAL!








By Jim Nugent

Problem Solving

Yesterday I realized that we had at least three problems with the traffic flow downtown. I also realized the city has spent $1,750,000 and we still have all of the same problems with our downtown traffic flow. Heading south the left hand turn lanes (which acted as storage) are now so short you are lucky to fit one car in there. So in the evenings I guess the traffic still backs up heading east onto Columbus Street. Every Morning most of the school children must pass over the Conrail line on their way to school. There have been two deaths on that rail line in the last four years. When there is a big event down at the High School or Junior High, I think it still will back up like it did before. Our city council has spent all this money and we still have the traffic problems. I don?’t ever remember having this much difficultly with making those turns at the four way stop. In short, I think our city council botched the job and they owe me or I should say they owe my wife a new hub cap.

If more of the city residents would have attended these committee meetings and council meetings would it have made a difference? Would their thought process been clearer? However I have read the minutes of some of these meetings and there appears to be some very good ideas coming from the public.

Did our city council define the problems we had with the traffic flow downtown? It is becoming painfully clear that they were just prettying up the road with some side bricks to make it look good for the November elections. They were more concerned with getting re-elected than they were with solving our traffic problems. In the past two years our city council has approved over 4000 building lots and they continue to approve more daily. They have now blown nearly $2 million and the road situation downtown will only get worse. How much longer can we continue to waste the city?’s resources? With all the homes coming in we will be called upon very soon to build additional schools? Can we afford to build more schools? I also just received my escrow statement from my mortgage company and they raised my escrow deduction again this year. I can only hope my raises can cover it.




















By Jim Nugent

city builds road for developer

The city built the Hill road connector to nowhere for Mr. Berry. It is part of a TIF (yes the schools and township property taxes really pay for it) for the ''commercial'' development he intends to bring downtown along that road.

Keep tuning in Mr. Nugent. Read some of the information posted on the our pages section at your left too... and then drive around town and it might just keep clicking with you. I'm sure the Mayor and city council are ''well meaning'' but the million dollar question is ''well meaning'' for who.

I'm sure the mayor started out really representing the people's interests in his long tenure on council. But a funny thing happens when you are surrounded by development interests and little citizen imput for many years. They have lost the ablity to listen to those who put them there. In fact, they are now downright beligerent to some citizens in public at their meetings. You are correct by stating that many good ideas have been brought up by the public to council, I believe council now judges the message by WHO THE MESSENGER IS(or they perceive them to be) and misses the message most of the time!

Traffic, Part 1

Mr. Nugent, I love ya Man! sniff?…. You hit right on a pet peeve of my life in Pickerington. We had traded postings before and I was worried we might never find something to see eye to eye on but here it is.

Look at the overall flow and control of traffic from city limit to city limit. Don?’t just focus on downtown. See beyond it but see how it fits into the bigger picture. Let?’s move from south to north, since the southerners have the furthest distance to get to the only freeway access in this community of over 30,000 and 39 square miles. You have voiced your frustration in the bottlenecks occurring in the old downtown section. Now do a little math and see where your frustration might be in a couple of years. How many houses are being added with the proposed annexations down Pickerington Road? How many houses are being built in or near the Villages at Sycamore Creek? Add 2 cars per house for each of the houses being built in those southern areas and you ain?’t seen nothing yet for bottlenecks downtown. We could potentially be talking about over a thousand more cars (conservatively) a day negotiating old downtown in their attempt to get to the freeway to get to their jobs because there is no places to work here. Don?’t forget the school buses that will have to be added to support these areas and the years of those huge dump trucks to get the places built. What good will the Hill Rd. Connector (by the way, don?’t refer to it as a ?“bypass?”; Mr. Parker told me how much that upsets the downtown business owners to insinuate that there will be any attempt to bypass their business area.) do even IF it is ever completed to help with the control and flow of the additional vehicles we?’re going to see from the proposed southern annexations and the Villages?

Shawnees Hills/Trails or whatever will be located where they extended the City limits out east on 256 past the new water tower. At last count there was 130 houses slated for there. Add 260 more cars to downtown. The sewer line the City put in to handle the Shawnee tract is capable of handling 1,000 homes, not just 130. Does that tell you whether or not the City has more annexation plans to the east? Add more cars, buses, trucks. Add, add, add.

Shall we work our way up Milnor Road with the houses being built in that area? Where do they have to go? Up Milnor to 204 or west on Refugee to 256 to get to the freeway. How many houses are being built in that area? 500, 600, 700? So that is 1,000, 1,200, 1,400 more cars to the line up to get to the freeway each morning? Am I exaggerating by saying that you could potentially pull out of your subdivision on Milnor Road and be stop and go from that point to the freeway in any direction?

I?’ve got to stop and catch my breath here. I?’ve added thousands of vehicles to the traffic mix and I haven?’t gotten west of Milnor yet. Do you see where this all leads us? Don?’t worry about a mere pittance spent for Mr. Berry?’s personal benefit or some eye candy around election time. That is small potatoes compared to what it will cost to fix the traffic flow and control after it is broken. What about the police, sheriff and fire departments who have to negotiate the traffic daily? Thank goodness I only go near the Wal-Mart area once every week or so. Imagine having to go through it several times a day in a large awkward vehicle where stopped traffic has absolutely no where to go to get out of your way and lives may be depending on how soon you can get there. Add Kohl?’s, add Giant Eagle, add, add, add. Do you think Reynoldsburg cares? They have other freeway accesses, not just one. So what if one gets totally screwed up?

continued...

By Maverick