TREE COMMISSION
City of Macon
P.O. Box 247
Macon, GA 31202-0247	

COMMISSIONERS

Appointed members

Carol Salami-Goswick
Chairman 
Citizen-at-large

Vacant
Citizen-at-large

Donna English 
Secretary
Master Gardener

Heather Bowman-Cutway
Citizen-at-large

Rob Apsley
Historic District

Willie Battle
Developer

Brian Stone
Professional Forester

Ex-officio members

Karol Kelly
Bibb County Extension Office

Dale Dougherty, Director
Macon-Bibb Parks and Recreation

Beryl Budd
Georgia Forestry Commission

Jon Lewis
Keep Macon-Bibb Beautiful Commission

Rick Shannon
Georgia Power

Ben Hamrick
Macon-Bibb Parks and Recreation

Randell Hunt
City Forester

James P. Thomas
Planning &  Zoning Commission
	
December 26, 2010

Honorable Robert Reichert
Mayor, City of Macon
700 Poplar Street
Macon, GA 31201

Dear Mayor Reichert,

The Macon Tree Commission wants to express some thoughts for your consideration on the Forest Hill Road redesign where scores of mature trees will be removed to make way for a wider road.  Significant loss of mature trees associated with this project can have long term negative impacts for the economic, esthetic and environmental quality of life in our community.  Any landscaping that is included in the design will take decades to partially restore the lost canopy and we are disappointed that the city forester was not consulted in order to assure that appropriate species are used.  

This project has not broken ground and there is still time to reconsider the design.   I would like to share some information that was provided at the 2009 Georgia Urban Forest Council conference where the theme was Transportation and Trees.  Eric Dumbaugh, PhD, a traffic planning expert with Texas A&M University and Kathleen Wolf, PhD, a research scientist with the University of Washington, College of Forest Resources were the guest speakers.  Participants learned that the last 40 years of urban road design is based on the interstate design model which has proven very safe for high speed, long distance traffic.  However, when this wide, straight, treeless shoulder interstate design is used for urban roads, it contributes to more accidents with higher degrees of human and property damage.  Eighty three percent (83%) of accidents on urban and suburban roads designed using this model were due to driving too fast to react to turns onto side roads. Urban roads must accommodate cross traffic which necessitates lower speeds to react in time to constantly changing traffic conditions not experienced on interstates.  Research has found that this older design model encourages excessive speeds because the visual clues indicate higher speeds are safe despite posting of lower speed limits and other warnings.  The speakers also discussed new design guidelines that use roundabouts and narrower roads and easements that are less intrusive on existing neighborhoods which the research shows are safer for urban/suburban vehicular traffic. In addition to psychologically calming drivers, narrower, tree lined streets provide visual clues that one should drive slower.  Other interesting data showed that these livable streets had significantly fewer crashes with less personal injury and death and that crashes involving trees only accounted for 2% of serious accidents.  
More information from the conference can be found at http://www.gufc.org/resources/presentations/. 
  
We learned that newer road design guidelines are backing away from the interstate inspired model.  Macon can be a leader in Middle Georgia by using newer design guidelines.  On behalf of your Tree Commission, I urge you to ask the MATS to reconsider the current design in favor of one that limits the loss of trees while mitigating existing traffic problems and accommodating future growth.   

Very truly yours,
Carol Salami-Goswick