Letter in Macon Telegraph

Businessman, Ken Jones wants a safer road


	Businessman Ken Jones wants to make "Forest Hill Road ...safer for all the right reasons"

Macon Telegraph Viewpoints for Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Road is unsafe

I was reading the comments of Lindsay Holliday calling the mayor “nuts” concerning the mayor’s decision to leave the Forest Hill Road project intact to make it safer for all the right reasons. Fear of losing the road funding is correct. The state will just go elsewhere with the money as they did a few years ago. Macon is well known for bickering at the Capitol. This project has been an ongoing fight for 15 years, but the reality is the road is very unsafe with high traffic counts and curves.

-- Ken Jones

FHR

Letter published in the Macon Telegraph on Sunday, May 29, 2011

We read the Ken Jones (May 11) letter in response to Lindsay Holliday's (May 5) letter, and we are gratified that Jones agrees with our goal of a safer road.

Unfortunately, Jones is misinformed about some of the details, so we will try to clarify those with the following facts, and with on-line documentation at www.Macon-Bibb.com/FHR

Jones has the traffic counts backwards. Traffic volumes over most of Forest Hill Road (FHR) have decreased in the past 17 years since the controversial "Road Improvement Program" SPLOST was passed. (9)

According to attorneys who are familiar with this project, "Safety is the defining issue here, and GDOT is clearly not using the safest designs for FHR" (Clark and Gautreaux at a public meeting 8-27-06) (1)

Over 700 Citizens signed a petition (2, 3, 4) asking for (safer) Roundabouts at certain intersections which would save money, time and lives - GDOT rejected this under their old roundabout guidelines a few years ago. GDOT has not reevaluated the FHR intersections yet under their new guidelines. GDOT refuses to revisit these intersections as long as Mayor Reichert and Bibb Chairman Hart continue to support the old Moreland-Altobelli (MAAI) designs.

During Mediation, in 2008, the citizen's expert suggested - (a) moving the faster lanes further away from pedestrians, and (b) using a 5 foot paved shoulder for bikers for safety. ( 5)

GDOT and Bibb County contractors, MAAI rejected this. Moreland's company stands to make much more money with their original, old design. Moreland has an unusually high pride in their design (Chellman's assessment) and they fear "loosing face" if mere citizens succeed in modifying the road plans.

Moreland has a stranglehold on the FHR project because the Bibb Commissioners continue to (unwisely) rehire Moreland year after year to (mis)administer this and other Bibb road projects. This is a disservice to our community and to the taxpayers.

GDOT's (Moreland's) plan to supersize FHR will increase the "design speed" to 48.5mph. This will make the road less safe, because whenever speeding is increased in an established, residential neighborhood, accidents and injuries increase. Citizens' expert engineer, Chellman, asked for a design speed of 35mph that would match the planned "posted speed" - this would be safer.     Moreland's crew rejected this request for safety.

Most citizens are unaware that, even though no road design is 100% safe, FHR is safer than most roads right now. According to GDOT official, Harvey Keepler, "FHR is currently 20% safer (accident rate) than comparable roads in Georgia..." ( 6)

During Robert Reichert's run for Macon's Mayor in July 2007, he told citizens that he would apply modern urban transportation planning techniques which protect the integrity of our neighborhoods and the quality of life in our community to all road projects in the city, including Forest Hill Road. "Isn't that just common sense?" he told us. (7 ) Reichert has reneged on this campaign promise.

Potholes on FHR appear to remain there to punish and coerce and extort the good (and "bad" alike) citizens of North Macon whose only offense is to ask for a better and safer road design. Many of us have asked GDOT and Bibb Commissioners to resurface this road or else to repost the speed limit to reflect the poor driving conditions there now. GDOT construction engineers admitted to the citizens at one meeting that they had no problem if Bibb County wanted to resurface FHR while waiting for construction. GDOT "routinely adjusts for the thickness of resurfacings during its construction phase of projects". Moreland got to this engineer over the next few days to make him partially recant and modify his statement to this, "Although we can adjust, during construction, for a few inches more of asphalt, IDEALLY the road should not be resurfaced after engineering drawings are done, before construction" (8) This flimsy excuse is used by all the officials who refuse to resurface FHR.

We hope that Mr Jones and other citizens will become better informed about the FHR's mediation design ( 5) that would save time and money and lives.

Informed citizens must hold GDOT, their contractors and Bibb County officials (and Mayor Reichert) accountable to the taxpayers and the voters.

There is a new 30 day comment period for FHR and other local transportation projects. This ends on June 17. Comments are collected by Macon-Bibb Planning and Zoning (10 ) An email to Roads@Macon-Bibb.com will send your comments to both the P&Z officials and to the Citizens Advisory Committee who will make sure all comments are included in the final document. Do you feel the FHR project (as currently designed) is a good use of your tax dollars? Or, do you want a safer and less expensive road? You must include your full name and postal address and telephone number in order to verify authorship and to be counted.

- FHR Mediation Team
Alice Boyd, Dan Fischer, Lindsay Holliday, Carol Lystlund, Susan H Martin

Note: Some of the Online Public Comments are now posted here.

FHR

- The Forest Hill Rd Neighborhood Mediation Team:

- Carol Lystlund <clyst@att.net>
730 Forest Hill Rd.
Macon 31210

- Lindsay Holliday <teeth@mindspring.com>
744 Forest Hill Rd.
Macon 31210

- Susan Hanberry Martin <shanberry@stratford.org>
4831 Guerry Drive
Macon 31210

- Dan Fischer <FISCHER_DP@Mercer.edu>
489 Ashville Drive
Macon 31210

- Alice Boyd <dmbx1@cox.net>
540 Forest Hill Rd
Macon 31210

Macon Telegraph Viewpoints for Thursday, May 5, 2011

a Letter to Editors which inspired Ken Jones to write his letter:

Several citizens and I met with Mayor Robert Reichert recently to discuss problems with the Forest Hill Road project design. Reichert said he’s afraid to ask for a design change from GDOT, because “someone” told him the project might lose funding if it is delayed for design modifications. Reichert summed up his feelings with this: “we need to spend the money because we have it.”

This is nuts.

If I called your health insurance company and got approval to amputate your leg, would you let me do it? The money would be there, and you would lose the money if you didn’t go through with the operation. Of course you would never make decisions like that just because the money is there. Road projects are the same thing. Supersizing FHR will destroy a valuable and stable neighborhood for what? The need is not there and the argument that we need to spend taxpayer money is immoral.

Mayor Robert Reichert needs to search his (political) soul for a better response. Please. Fix the intersections and make FHR safer for walking and biking. And save taxpayers millions of dollars while you are at it.

-- Lindsay D. Holliday

Last MATS Policy Meeting
http://www.macon-bibb.com/MATS/Policy20110518.htm

Draft TIP
http://www.maconbibbpz.org/artman2/uploads/1/TIP_5-18-11_Draft.pdf

	(EA) - Environmental Assessment - Errorsronmental
	Stormwater Runoff The EA incorrectly lists the FHR branch tributary of Savage Creek as intermittent, but it is a perennial stream This stream is easily observed where it flows under a bridge/driveway at 744 Forest Hill Road - residence address. Several hundred feet of this stream will be heavily impacted. Mitigation has not been properly calculated for this constant-flowing stream.


Macon, Ga
- The Forest Hill Rd Neighborhood Mediation Team: - Carol Lystlund <clyst@att.net> 730 Forest Hill Rd. Macon 31210 - Lindsay Holliday <teeth@mindspring.com> 744 Forest Hill Rd. Macon 31210 - Susan Hanberry Martin <shanberry@stratford.org> 4831 Guerry Drive Macon 31210 - Dan Fischer <FISCHER_DP@Mercer.edu> 489 Ashville Drive Macon 31210 - Alice Boyd <dmbx1@cox.net> 540 Forest Hill Rd Macon 31210

So why are we continuing to build these three and five-lane roads which are clearly unsafe for pedestrians to cross? If you’re fiscally responsible (see below) and concerned about your constituents’ safety, it makes no sense to continue this outdated method of building roads because “it’s what we’ve always done and everyone expects it.” And what do we have to show for it? (Please see below)
Lee M

http://t4america.org/resources/dangerousbydesign2011/

Click on “all state data” under the list of the 10 most dangerous metros, then click on Georgia on the interactive map, and scroll down. Macon has 3.3 pedestrian deaths per 100,000 population, the highest in the state among metro areas, even higher than Atlanta and African Americans lead the list! No other metro even reaches 3 deaths per 100K! Bibb County is in the top five in the county category! Isn’t this what we have been saying about dangerous roads in our community? Three-lane and five-lane roads kill…and these statistics prove it. Four-lane, landscaped median roads and roundabouts are much safer, so why are the mayor and the county commissioners continuing to push these unsafe designs? This makes no $ense.

Between 2000 and 2009 there were 1,545 pedestrian deaths in Georgia, which cost the state $6.64 billion. Reducing pedestrian fatalities just 10% would have saved Georgia $664.35 million over 10 years. Georgia's overall Pedestrian Danger Index (PDI) is 102.9, which ranks 10th out of 50 states. Download Georgia report/factsheet PDF

Wonk A bird's-eye-view of the dangers metro Atlanta pedestrians face

Posted by Thomas Wheatley on Thu, May 26, 2011 at 8:30 AM

Transportation For America

According to Transportation for America, a nonprofit advocacy group that pushes for more transit and sidewalks, 798 pedestrians were killed between 2001 and 2009 in metro Atlanta- the country's 10th most dangerous region walkers. T4A wants the federal government to start paying more attention to- and providing more cash for - complete streets and sidewalks, simple projects which have been overlooked in favor of roads that the organization says are "engineered for speeding traffic with little or no provision for people on foot, in wheelchairs or on bicycles." Here's a list of Georgia-related stats about pedestrian fatalities. And here's a map, a screenshot of which we've posted above, pinpointing all the pedestrian fatalities

The 1994 "Road Improvement Program" SPLOST - grossly mis-mannaged - threatens to destroy the Forest Hill Neighborhood.

- CAUTION Macon -

Forest Hill Road