ODOT raises safety, legal concerns about removing ramp to Ohio 315

clear that the plan hinged on OhioHealth securing the 1.63 acres of “ODOT land” under Exit 6C on which to build part of its campus, the hospital system and the city still had to convince ODOT that it was a good, responsible and safe thing to do.

But by November 2016, city and state highway engineers had run into problems.

Even though the land under the ramp was owned by the city, there was a contract with ODOT that required the city to keep Ohio 315 “open to traffic at all times” and “maintain the right-of-way and keep it free of obstructions.” It must “hold said right-of-way inviolate for public highway purposes” and “be made available therefor,” free of “private installations.”

In other words, the city appeared contractually obligated to keep Exit 6C open. The contract was signed in 1978 by the city’s public service director, the state director of transportation and the Ohio attorney general’s office.

On top of that, that final segment of the highway was built with 75 percent federal funds, according to Dispatch articles from the early 1980s, at a cost of about $27 million, or about $116 million in today’s dollars. “Federal money was involved in the original purchase for parcels,” said notes from a meeting between ODOT and city highway engineers at ODOT District 6 headquarters in November 2016.

The money spent on the ramp by the Federal Highway Administration “may need to be reimbursed,” the notes said, and “FHWA has to be involved in the process, (which) could take up to a year to get clearance.”

Despite that, the project was moving full speed ahead.

As part of the project, the national engineering firm Burgess & Niple, headquartered in Columbus, completed a traffic study on Aug. 22, 2016. The study projected that traffic would increase by double-digit percentages over the next two decades for most of the Ohio 315/ North Broadway area.

But not for Exit 6C, the ramp slated to be given away, where the study predicted that traffic would fall off by about 100 vehicles a day over two decades if the ramp were kept in place.

Still, traffic-safety experts from the city and ODOT were concerned that removing Exit 6C could make Route 315 more dangerous by potentially causing traffic to back up on the remaining exit ramps and the freeway itself during peak hours. The number of people entering and leaving OhioHealth Riverside Methodist Hospital was set to grow from the current 6,000 employees to 9,000 in two decades, and the new office/retail development for which 6C was being demolished would add about 2,500 additional commuters a day to the area.

“From what I see, these plans remove the Ramp C pavement but make no improvements to the roadway network for traffic that will be diverted,” said a review from ODOT’s Roadway Engineering Department 16 days before a May 2017 public meeting unveiling the highway changes to the public.