ODOT Director Gordon Proctor

Reply from ODOT Director Gordon Proctor to the OBF

The following has been scanned and rendered to text by Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. All reasonable efforts have been taken to correct OCR process errors. (Note, address is out-of-date.)

December 7, 2000

Mr. Chuck Smith, Chairman
Ohio Bicycle Federation
825 Olde Farm Court
Vandalia, OH 45377

Dear Mr. Smith:

This is in response to your November 11, 2000 letter regarding bicyclist access to Ohio's roadways.

The Ohio Bicycle Federation recommends reopening several roads that currently do not allow bicycle
access. Specifically, the roads are:

- SR 2 at the Sandusky Bay Bridge;
- SR 7 along the Ohio River between the Moundsville bridge and East Liverpool;
- SR 104 in the City of Columbus between 1-71 and US 33;
- SR 161, the New Albany Bypass at Little Turtle;
- US 23 southbound in the City of Columbus between Nationwide Blvd. and Goodale St.;
- US 33 in Hocking County and in the City of Athens;
- US 35 in Fayette, Ross, Jackson and Gallia Counties;
- US 50 in the City of Cincinnati and in the City of Athens;
- US 52 along the Ohio River in the Portsmouth area;
- US 422 at SR 44 in Geauga County and at an underpass in the City of Warren.

Several of these roadways are not under ODOT's jurisdiction, therefore, please contact the following
parties for these specific locations.

State Routes l04, 161, and US 23, are under the City of Columbus' jurisdiction. The contacts are Jim
Music and Dale Hooper at the following addresses.

Jim Music Bicycle Advisory Council
Division Administrator c/o Dale Hooper, Bikeway Coordinator
Traffic Engineering Public Service Department
109 N. Front Street/2nd floor Traffic Engineering
Columbus, OH 43215 109 N. Front Street/2nd Floor
Columbus, OH 43215

The US 50 roadway in Hamilton County is withill the City of Cincinnati's jurisdiction. The contact is
Prem Garg, P.E., City of Cincinnati, 801 Plum Street, City Hall, Room 445, Cincinnati, OH 45202.

In regards to the underpass in Warren on US 422, please provide specific location information in your
correspondence to: William Totten, Assistant City Engineer, Warren Engineering, Planning and Building
Department, 540 Laird Avenue SE, Warren, OH 44484.

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My staff has researched the remaining roadways listed and found that all are categorized as freeways, by
law. The Ohio Revised Code, section 4511.01, defines a freeway as a "divided multi-lane highway for
through traffic with all cross roads separated in grade and with full control of access". Code section
4511.051 contains "Prohibitions on the Use of Freeways" as follows: "No person shall operate a bicycle
within the boundary lines of a freeway except where there exists a facility that is separate from the
roadway and shoulders designed and appropriately marked for bicycle use."

Aside from being classified freeways, some roadways don't lend themselves to safe bicycle travel because
of design, traffic congestion, or unique environmental influences. State Route 2 has wide approach
shoulders but the bridge itself has a shoulder less than the minimum four-foot bike lane width. Strong
cross winds are frequent occurrences on the bridge, and combined with the slope of the bridge, a
bicyclists' ability to stay within the narrow shoulder would be severely impaired. This brldge averages
17,000 vehicles daily, including 4,300 trucks. Traffic in the summer is often bumper to bumper with
traffic heading to the lakeshore and the islands.

State Route 7 is a freeway with full-width shoulders, but the shoulders, the median barriers and the
rock fence protection exist largely to reduce crashes and road damage caused by landslides that commonly
occur. When this route was rebuilt as a freeway, much of the old road was obliterated due to lack of
space for both the old and the new roads. Average traffic counts vary from 5,000 to 35,000 per day,
depending upon location. Some of the old road still exists, and is used by traffic. However, there is
potential, although expensive, for counties or other local jurisdictions to create a bikeway within the
corridor.

United States Route 35 has lengthy segments of freeway in the four counties named, plus Montgomery and
Greene Counties. Traffic counts range from 9-24,000 daily. The old route is available for bicyclists
from Washington Court House to Chillicothe. The old two-lane segment from 1-71 to Washington Court House
is not recommended for bicyclists, even though legal. In Chillicothe, a detour onto SR 104 and Higby
Road will reestablish a connection to US 35 although US 35 becomes a legal freeway just a few miles
away, in Jackson County. Note that US 35 continues as a freeway across the Ohio River, thus bicyclists
need to route themselves to Pomeroy or to Huntington in order to cross the River. The Jamestown
Connector, and the Adena Trail (formerly Tri-County Triangle Trail) parallel US 35, and extensions to
each of these trails was approved in our last round of Transportation Enhancement (TE) awards, announced
in November.

United States Route 52 in Scioto County, US 33 in Hocking and Athens Counties, and US 50 in Athens
County are freeways also. Average daily traffic varies from 13-32,000. The Department recently upgraded
US 50 on November 17, 2000, by opening a 16-mile segment between Athens and Coolville. A separate
bikeway, the Hockhocking-Adena Bikeway, runs parallel to US. 33 on a former rail corridor. The City of
Nelsonville and the City of Athens were awarded TE funds in November, to extend this bikeway into
Nelsonville, and to the eastern limits of Athens, parallel to US 50 and State Street.

United States Route 422 is a freeway beginning in Cuyahoga County at I-271 and ending at Shaw Road on
the east side of the Ladue Reservoir in Geauga County. Therefore, the sign located on the entrance ramp
from SR 44 to eastbound US 422 is correct.

The bicyclists who are members of the Ohio Bicycle Federation may be highly experienced and roadwise
riders who stay out of danger because they know the danger of sharing the roadway with vehicles
traveling at high speeds. However, not every bicyclist is a good rider and we have concerns with the
less experienced, recreational riders, bicyclists who may stop on the road when they are tired, drift
into traffic, or pull in front of overtaking traffic. These riders would use the freeways as well.
Merging with

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traffic at freeway entrance and exit ramps (cloverleafs in particular) would be very dangerous due to
speed and size differences between bicyclists and motorized vehicles. For safety reasons, ODOT does not
advocate mixing bicycle and automobile/truck traffic on freeways. As an alternative, ODOT works with
local communities to develop a system of separate bikeways that as closely as possible connect the
destinations served by freeways.

If you have any additional questions, please contact Sharon Todd at 614-752-4685.

Respectfully

Godon(sic) Proctor
Director