Logic would tell us that all users and managers are responsible for the preservation of a scenic byway's intrinsic qualities. So, where do you turn when a byway's sponsor, ODOT, and other government officials decide to implement a project that is contrary to the goal of the Ohio Scenic Byway program?
Each Ohio Scenic Byway is charged with preserving and enhancing the intrinsic qualities by which the byway was designated. In this specific case, all efforts are to be directed toward preserving and improving the OHC's historic, scenic, and natural qualities.
Instead, Delaware County Engineer Bauserman has decided the OHC's National Register West Orange Road Bridge is "structurally deficient and functionally obsolete" and that relocating the historic scenic road and adding a new bridge and roundabout is necessary. This project negatively affects all of the intrinsic qualities by which the OHC was designated: historic (National Register-listed landmark), scenic (state scenic byway), and natural (state scenic river).
Knowing the project would be highly controversial, Mr. Bauserman has hired a PR firm to orchestrate "communications" for the project. Although the project is now in final design phase, Mr. Bauserman has refused to hold public hearings or discuss the historic bridge. Instead, "open houses" have been used to control and direct all public input.
ODOT has given a nod to the proposed roundabout on State Route 315, the narrow, winding river road at the core of the Olentangy Heritage Corridor. The "heritage" in the OHC's name refers to this road, a Native American trail that became the first road commissioned in Delaware County in 1808. The byway also honors the county's first white settlements, mill, school, and one of only two National Register bridges in the county. In spite of this, the byway's sponsor, the Liberty Township Board of Trustees, has not publicly opposed the project. Instead, the Board has voted to look into widening historic W. Orange Road after the new bridge is built, a step that will remove the road's landmark tree canopy.
In 2008, Delaware County will celebrate its bicentennial. Planning is now underway to showcase the county's history. Ironically, if Delaware County continues on its current path, it will be destroying its own "Heritage Corridor" in the very year it is celebrating its heritage!
Your letters of support for the OHC are urgently needed. Please send a one-sentence email with your name and address to Judi Brozek, Chairperson of Friends of the Olentangy River at
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. stating, "I (we) believe the Liberty Township Comprehensive Land Use Plan should prevail with regard to the West Orange Road Bridge Project along the OHC Scenic Byway." Ms. Brozek will make copies and forward them in a group to the Delaware County Engineer, Delaware County Commissioners, Liberty Township Trustees, and ODOT.
BRIEF OVERVIEW OF SITUATION
• The ODOT-designated OHC State Scenic Byway includes the ODNRdesignated Olentangy State Scenic River and the National Register-listed 1898 West Orange Road Pratt Through Truss Bridge.
• Pratt Through Truss bridges are an endangered species in Ohio. In 1983, Ohio had 510 of them. Today, there are 122 left. (Of them, only 23 are eligible for the National Register.) In the past 23 years, 75% have disappeared. In the past 5 years alone, 9 have been removed each year. At this rate, all could be gone from the Ohio landscape in little over a decade.
• The 2006 Comprehensive Land Use Plan of Liberty Township states the historic West Orange Road Bridge should be preserved as a vehicular bridge in its current location.
• The OHC Byway Management Plan states the bridge should be preserved.
• According to work orders from the Delaware County Engineer's Office, no regular maintenance to the bridge's superstructure or substructure has occurred in the past decade. No major rehab work has been done since 1970.
• Delaware County already has torn down all other historic bridges in the OHC.
• Now, Delaware County is proceeding with plans to move West Orange