NO TO ODOT I-73 BYPASS THROUGH MARION, MORROW COS.

Instead, Build an Elevated Expressway Over Old 23

The plan to build a limited access highway using existing US23 from Michigan, through Ohio, the Appalachian States onto the shores of the Atlantic Ocean has been on the drawing boards of all the affected state transportation departments for decades but all these plans gathered dust since the Federal government hasn’t raised the federal gas tax on gasoline from 18 cents and diesel from 24 cents for nearly thirty years. As a result the Highway Trust Fund that is responsible for new federal highway construction in the states has been bled dry. The Highway Trust Fund was established for the sole purpose of funding the federal highway system, including funding for mass transit. The U.S. has been kicking this can down the road mainly due to lobbying by the oil and gas industry to not raise the federal gas tax, presumably forever.

Ohio, like many states across the U.S., has been reluctant to raise the state gas tax, again attributable to the industry lobbying. It was only last year that Gov. DeWine signed the budget bill raising the state gas 7.5 cents up to the present 31 cents a gallon because his administration knows Ohio is unable to keep up with road maintenancer. That increase was the first time Ohio raised the gas tax in 24 years. As a result, Ohio’s own Highway Trust Fund has been depleted and has been unable to fund new road building in a timely manner. The DeWine Administration and the General Assembly may be looking again to raise the state gax tax this year realizing they are woefully behind.

State officials, along with local officials from Delaware County, allowed unchecked growth along US23 for decades without adhering to the original plan to develop US23 into a limited access highway, and now they want to tear up good farmland and disrupt local communities building a bypass that need not exist. Columbus is due to grow to 1.5 million people by the year 2050 and Delaware County will grow to 500,000 by that same year, and that’s why state officials are panicking now because they don’t know how they’re going to transport all of the goods and people in a safe and efficient manner.

My plan, as I have outlined elsewhere in my platform, is for the Bank of Ohio, together with the National Infrastructure Bank, when passed by Congress, to both serve as the lenders to build an elevated stretch of highway directly over the existing US23, beginning at a point south of US229 using the existing interior lanes of the “experimental pavement” lanes ODOT laid there over 40 years ago. The elevated highway is the airspace directly over the existing federal/state-owned right-of-way which should make the eminent domain issues go away, and there not be a toll road here either as there simply won’t be a need to collect extra funds to pay for the road. The elevated highway should be publicly accessed.  The new, elevated I-73 would intersect with I-270 thereby removing a majority of the pass through traffic to Columbus and beyond safely above and easing the local and pedestrian traffic below. It is also envisioned that the elevated I-73 would have an entrance/exit for Polaris at the Rt750 Intersection.

Many other cities across this country and around the world use elevated highways to ease traffic flows and create not only safer spaces after the cars and trucks are removed but reduce the everyday stress associated with high traffic areas. This is the way!