Late this afternoon, I attended a meeting hosted by ODOT to explain their reasoning for choosing Alternative #5 for the future St. Rt. 16 & Cherry Valley Road interchange between Newark, Ohio and Granville, Ohio. First of all I was very impressed on how many ODOT employees were present in the entry OSU-Newark's Reese Center lined with large project maps . No less than a dozen times did someone come up to me to ask if I had questions or if I needed an explanation of the project.The hard part is a strong fact: this will not be constructed for many years to come. But at least the drawings are complete, the properties identified for land acquisition and people know what is going to take place.
I am a proponent of roundabout intersections because of their safety features. It is to shame the interchange will not be constructed immediately. The use of roundabouts for this project would show how effective they are for intersections and perhaps set an example on more roundabouts in the cities, villages and other areas of the county to be constructed.
If ODOT would like to place some icing on the cake, the entire highway from 270 in Franklin County, through Licking County and further east should be re-numbered as St. Rt. 161. How simple would it be to give directions for someone coming from the west to Licking County or for our 911 Center to identify addresses for emergencies. We need to work on this and say goodbye to a confusing mess.
Click here to read Rick Platt's comments posted this past March.
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