Viaduct Chaos -- Day One

Nice going city fathers, seems they don't have enough brains to make some oneways. 7th and 8th streets and 26th and 23rd ave.'s should all be oneways.

This is a result of a lame city council. For at least 20years the City Council has been putting off the need for a second overpass and it finally caught up to them. It is easy to blame the State for this mess however if the City would have built the overpass on 12th Ave there would be no problem.
Thanks to the great leaders of Columbus past and present.

Nice video!!! Don't know what you are talking about the viaduct on 12th Ave is the most bone headed ideas of them all. The 3rd ave should be half built by now but we haven't even broke ground yet!!!!! Just a simple up and over it could have been done by now.

No, I am looking at the prints for constructing both the 3rd and 12th Ave. viaducts and neither is a simple up and over. 3rd Ave. is a long upward turn sweeping east and then back down sweeping west with the added length to allow for normal/flat grade at 8th St. 12th Ave does about the same thing. Both are going to be excellent additions to the community when completed. To bad we didn't approvwe them earlier.

Just a prime example of why Columbus will never be as good as the other cities of its size. Norfolk is so much cleaner. Dirty towns deserve what they get. Close the town down for good.

Yes, additional viaducts would have helped the situation as far as getting over the tracks, but where I have a problem is, is that you can't dump all this additional traffic onto 8th street and expect this under-developed road to handle all this traffic. 8th street should be one way going west-7th street should be one way going east. The traffic light on the corner of 8th and 33rd should be timed so that the majority of time it is relieving 8th street. Just my 2 cents--but I'm not on the city council or apparently smart enough to think outside the box.

Given the back-ups that have already taken place, does anyone know what the plans are should there be a train accident (there have been a couple of train-car crashes in the past few months)? If that happens and the trains stop in place until after the investigation is complete, all of our available crossings could be blocked. And, during the periods of time that the trains are halted because of removal of construction debris, etc. from the tracks, how much longer of a delay are we going to experience at crossings once the trains start moving again?

If everybody just takes there time, you will be ok. Learn where all of the 4 way stop signs are and use them. For those of you to say make 7th or 6th streets a one way, You are wrong. People that just want to compain. We have no choice about what is going on so we are just going to have to deal with it and please take your time. There are alot of kids that walk home from school and have to cross 8th street. Please keep your eyes open.

What I am concerned with is the people that think they can move ahead on 23rd or 26th Ave. is backed up and they end up waiting ON the tracks and can't move ahead or back up. Also the traffic gets moving and you almost get rear ended from people thinking they can move more than they can. Yesterday at 4:30 23rd Ave. was backed up from 8th St. to Main St. WOW!!

im thinking that the city should be considering the ideas brought up in the comments of these viaduct stories. it could help! but lets not listen to these people or the high school student here telling the city to listen to the CITIZENS!!! BTW: get over the delay! we have ALL been told this would be bad. Leave early from home, stay in town late, and WOW! that could take care of the congestion!!! Think AHEAD!!! better late than NEVER!!!

You seriously consider Norfolk clean? Coming from somebody that used to live there I can guarantee you that Columbus is a vast improvement over Norfolk...
Us in Columbus have had the chance to have new viaducts, and we refused. Get over it, and deal with the delays.

It really stands out that we have a lot of small towners here. Just imagine if you were to actually live in the big city and have detours 365 days a year. If this town could so easily support additional viaduct, they would have been built already. About the only Ave that makes sense is 3rd. No other Ave should or can support a viaduct. I cant imagine the traffic congestion from a 12th Ave viaduct. There is going to be so many backups on the east/west roads, and this will be permanent congestion. We have people that cant handle a temporary one!

"take your time" wrote:
"For those of you to say make 7th or 6th streets a one way, You are wrong. People that just want to compain."

Why would making 6th or 7th Streets one way wrong? It would take twice as much traffic thru in the same amount of time if it was one way. Right? Let us know why it is wrong please.

I am just in shock how quickly people forget. The city council was for a new viduct and the city of Columbus voted it down. And now you all blame the city council. If you dont like the people on there maybe you should run for office.

What in the world would a viaduct on 3rd, or even 12th avenue do to help this situation? You would still have an under-developed 8th street handling all traffic from the south. All that would do is move the congestion east.

The only help for this would be a bypass to the south. Unfortunately, that means another bridge or two over the Loup. For a town that can't even agree on where to put a viaduct, that's about as likely to happen as everyone growing wings and flying to work.

I've seen some great ideas on here. You can only hope that the city engineers are reading. The only thing I've seen them do to try and improve the situation is turning the 8th/33rd intersection into a 3-way stop, which is just stupid. Instead of making every 5th or 6th car stop...let's make everyone stop! What a great idea, that will speed things up.

And whoever decided it was okay to close two railroad crossings should be fired. I realize that was a UP decision, but they had to have input from the city.

I don't even live there anymore and I'm getting steamed over this. I can't even imagine how people in Genoa, Silver Creek and Monroe feel.

Seriously Columbus Telegram,
You call these street scene Chaos? I call it more an inconvenience. You guys need to get out and travel more. I'll tell Mary Junck you guys have been working too hard. LOL!

Just think about it, only 10 more months of 'Chaos'.

To Figures why do you think norfork is much cleaner. Have you ever driven around and actually looked around. I took my son to look for places to live while he attended college we seen some no alot of dumpy places. we finally found an apartment outside of town but that wasnt very clean area either.Next time ;your in norfolk take a good look around.

Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda...

There's a lot of complaining about what should have been done, about the 2nd viaduct, how the city messed up, threatening lawsuits, etc. None of it matters. You can't change the past or predict the future. You can only deal with the present inconvenience and move ahead. Maybe we call all learn something from this.
It's an inconvenience, not a tragedy.

To "come on people"- The citizens of Columbus voted FOR the construction of two new viaducts at 3rd and 12th, along with a pedestrian overpass at 18th Ave. They are scheduled to start construction in about a year. I agree with you about one thing though- if you don't like the people on our current city council, run for office.

To all the rest of the whiners- ten minutes is NOT chaos, nor is it a delay to complain about. Get a grip and leave home a bit earlier.

And- if you think Columbus is dirty, do something about it like volunteer to pick up litter and plant a few flowers or something-or at least stop tossing your crap out of your cars and put a lid on your trash cans!

If you don't want to get caught on the tracks in backed up traffic, it is pretty easy to figure out that you stop BEFORE the tracks when you are that close and move up WHEN it clears and you can get over the tracks entirely. No brainer to me, it is what I do anytime I come to tracks or an open intersection. Common sense, wish I could sell it and retire.