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    Forest Hill Road  

Macon, Ga

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Macon Telegraph Opinion - page 6A

Posted on Fri, Apr. 07, 2006

http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/opinion/14281940.htm

Forest Hill Road, a long fight to retain its personality

Forest Hill Road quietly meanders through some of Macon's most established neighborhoods. It branches from Wesleyan Drive at its northernmost end, crosses Northside Drive and finally intersects with Forsyth Road.

If the Bibb County Road Improvement Program, partially funded by a 1-cent sales tax increase approved in 1994, is remembered for anything, it will be the contentious fights over Houston Road and Forest Hill Road. Residents lost the Houston Road fight, and the same fate may await opposition to Forest Hill Road plans.

Forest Hill has been an integral part of the so-called Northwest Parkway since 1997. Engineers originally wanted to widen it from two-lanes to five. Susan Hanberry said of the original plan, "They're trying to turn Forest Hill into another Forsyth Motor Speedway (in reference to the five-lane Forsyth Road)."

The widening was scaled back, but even the present plan has issues. Members of CAUTION-Macon - formed partly to fight the widening of Forest Hill - and residents along the road - are still not happy, and they shouldn't be. From the beginning of the roads program, citizen input has only been a catch phrase. When officials weren't providing lip service to valid concerns, they were busy shifting responsibility between local, state and federal funding sources. To justify the plan, some of the data, such as traffic counts, defied reality.

Wednesday, the Macon Area Transportation Study's (MATS) policy committee reaffirmed its support of the latest DOT plan. Not expecting the project to come up, City Council representatives on the committee, and opposed to the plan, were caught flat-footed. Council President Anita Ponder said she and others didn't have their "ducks in a row." That is an understatement. The project is almost 10 years old, and DOT has already dismissed council's request to meet about one of the design features, roundabouts, suggested by CAUTION-Macon. With all the twists and turns surrounding this project, anything should have been expected.

Now, the questions about roundabouts and other design changes won't be decided on merit, but whether design money is available. Bibb Chairman Charlie Bishop, who sits on the policy committee, said, "we're out of design money." Lindsay Holliday, a substitute on the committee, disagreed. We think its a matter of patience, not money. But of more importance than roundabouts is drainage. If estimates of storm-water runoff are incorrect, flooding occurs. Our city and county governments hold private developers to one factor (site boundary) when determining runoff, but for Forest Hill the entire drainage basin is being used. That caused an estimated 30 percent runoff to drop to 0.4 percent. Unfortunately, many of the people who accepted this plan will be long gone by the time problems arise.

- The Telegraph Editors.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For more information,

see Caution's Forest Hill Rd website

http://www.macon-bibb.com/FHR

Mr. Wallwork's letter:

http://www.macon-bibb.com/FHR/Wallwork1.jpg

http://www.macon-bibb.com/FHR/Wallwork2.jpg

http://www.macon.com/mld/telegraph/news/editorial/letters/14281159.htm

Posted on Fri, Apr. 07, 2006   page 7A

Forest Hill Road money

Bibb Commission Chairman Charles Bishop is incorrect when he says there is no more design money for Forest Hill Road. What he means is that he has no intention nor desire to ask for more.

GDOT has a multibillion dollar annual budget that they shift and allocate as our state and local officials see fit. Mr. Bishop does not respect nor acknowledge that a majority of the citizens continue to ask for a safer and more efficient design. He feigns ignorance that GDOT has plenty of money for redesigns from now until forever.

Mr. Bishop told me yesterday (Wednesday) that, years ago, the "Interstate was put through his own back yard". . . as if that past action somehow justifies the current plans to abuse the neighborhood at Forest Hill Road.

This reminds one of the child-abuse cycle where the formerly abused child becomes the abusing adult. Enough. It is time to break the chain of wrongdoing. Shine light on the facts: There are any number of better designs for Forest Hill Road.

Michael Wallwork (of Alternate Street Design, Orange Park, Fla.) wrote a letter to Bishop recently to explain one better design. He also explained how to easily get the additional design money.

This letter is posted from links at the Caution Macon website: www.macon-bibb.com/FHR

The Wallwork letter shows how wrong commissioners Sam Hart and Bishop were. Citizens must continue to insist on the right thing to be done.

Lindsay D. Holliday

Macon

back to Forest Hill Road

Bibb Commissioners vote against the citizen interests.

Posted on Thu, Apr. 06, 2006

http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/14273795.htm

Group reaffirms support for Forest Hill Road project

By Keich Whicker

TELEGRAPH STAFF WRITER

The Macon Area Transportation Study's policy committee overlooked the protests of some Macon officials and reaffirmed Wednesday its support for a project that would widen portions of Forest Hill Road.

To avoid confusion, Bibb County Commission Chairman Charlie Bishop said the state Department of Transportation needed to know it could go ahead with its existing plans for Forest Hill and start purchasing the land necessary for the project by a June deadline.

"We didn't want (the Department of Transportation) to think with all the publicity about it that there had been any change," said Bishop, chairman of the committee. "It was really something that DOT was probably looking for direction on."

Offered by Commissioner Sam Hart, the motion for a resolution in support of the project as it is currently outlined prompted a pair of city officials to question why the committee would consider such a move when the Macon City Council recently sponsored a resolution that called on the DOT, the Federal Highway Administration and MATS to reconsider the Forest Hill design.

Macon City Council President Anita Ponder said she didn't expect the Forest Hill project to be addressed Wednesday at the meeting. When Bishop brought it up, she said officials were trying to sneak the matter "through the back door" during the portion of the meeting devoted to old business.

"I think this should have been an agenda item so we could come to the meeting prepared to discuss it," she said.

Caught unprepared, Ponder later said she and other city officials "didn't have our ducks in a row" well enough to resist the resolution or ask the committee to consider another motion.

"We wanted to do our fact finding and get our information," she said, explaining the lack of action. "We didn't have that information together."

Asked about the incident after the meeting, Bishop said he brought the issue up in old business because it is old business.

Lindsay Holliday, a local roads activist who was at the meeting to fill in for an absent MATS member, unsuccessfully proposed the resolution be tabled until the committee dealt with concerns about the project's design.

Bishop said it is time for the project go forward because the requests for a redesign have been reviewed and ultimately rejected.

"We're out of design money," he said. "And this has been looked at."

Ponder said road planners needed to resist the urge of doing the project quickly for the sake of doing something.

"I understand the frustration ... how slow some of these projects move," she said. "But sometimes that's what happens in politics. That's what happens when you're trying to get things right."

Ponder still wants the DOT to meet with City Council and the MATS citizens advisory committee to explain why roundabouts won't work in the Forest Hill project.

Although the DOT recently informed the council such a meeting will not happen, transportation representatives attending Wednesday's MATS meeting seemed willing to meet with the council and the committee.

"I doubt very seriously that it's a done deal ... when it's all said and done, it may be right ... that the (project design) before us is the very best one," Ponder said. "The only thing we ask is to take everything in consideration."

Telegraph staff writer Travis Fain contributed to this report.   To contact writer Keich Whicker, call 744-4494 or e-mail kwhicker@macontel.com

   

- CAUTION Macon -

Forest Hill Road