Caution Macon 

Jeffersonville Road
Macon, Ga.

What is Wrong with these Traffic Counts?  The Counts do Not justify the proposed road plan.

Traffic "Projections" are self-serving for the Contractor$...

Jeffersonville    Road   CONCERNS	Thursday, Jan. 05, 2012   Supporters push for Jeffersonville Road expansion By MIKE STUCKA - mstucka@macon.com Alice Roberts can’t wait for the state to tear her house down and start widening Jeffersonville Road. [Roberts plans to 'Cut and Run' -- Hardly a healthy endorsement of the project!] “Someone has to give up for the greater good,” said Roberts, who lives near the road’s split with Emery Highway. “I just hope they can hurry it up.”   Residents at Thursday night’s public meeting about Jeffersonville Road seemed mostly worried about how long it would take to widen the road from two lanes to five. Construction is expected to wrap up in 2017. The meeting at Mount Moriah Missionary Baptist Church was busy, with about 80 people arriving in the first half of the three-hour open house. Roadwork also would reach up Millerfield Road toward the church, but most of the work will be on Jeffersonville Road itself. The project includes adding sidewalks and a turn lane while doubling the number of travel lanes. Planning for the $24.6 million Jeffersonville Road project was launched with money from Bibb County’s 1994 special purpose local option sales tax, but delays set in. An environmental study took about six tries to complete, said Van Etheridge, program manager for the Macon-Bibb County Road Improvement Program, who said people want the road widened soon. “Everybody I talked to is all for it,” Etheridge said. “They just want to know when we’re getting started. And that’s the bad news I had to tell them, ‘not right away.’ ”  [Mr Van Etheridge is being paid to push this project for Moreland-Altobelli contractors.  Of course he will endorse the project!  What else could he have said and still kept his job?] Each part of the widening project would place a sidewalk or multi-purpose path on each side of Jeffersonville and Millerfield roads. The roads now are mostly two lanes with no sidewalks. The expansion is a long-awaited relief to Barbara Howard, a retiree from Robins Air Force Base who lives off Millerfield Road. She sees handicapped people sometimes with wheelchairs in the street because there’s nowhere else for them to travel.  [This is a valid concern that would be answered by a good sidewalk.  No need for a 5-lane road.  How would a 5-lane road help a wheelchair???] “I’m all for it. We want to see this completed in our lifetimes,” Howard said.  [It can be completed much quicker with a different design - Would you prefer that?] Roberts said she didn’t know her house was slated for demolition until she arrived at Thursday’s meeting. In all, some 12 houses and two businesses are expected to be demolished, most of them close to Emery Highway and the entrance to the Ocmulgee National Monument. Officials plan to buy right-of-way beginning this summer, and could buy everything they need for a wider road by mid-2014. Construction likely would begin in 2015. Roberts said the upgrades are needed. “It is a good project, and the road is dangerous,” she said.  [Is she aware that the proposed 5-lane road design is considered by many roads engineers as being much more dangerous to human health and safety?]  To contact writer Mike Stucka, call 744-4251. http://www.macon.com/2012/01/06/1852142/supporters-push-for-expansion.html COMMENTS--- From: "Sylvia Flowers" <sflowers1@windstream.net> To: <Jocox@dot.ga.gov>,     <kvanhouten@dot.ga.gov>,     <mmurdoch@dot.ga.gov> Subject: Jeffersonville-Millerfield Roads Widening Project, Macon, GA Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 20:02 Gentlemen,   We did not know about the January 5th GDOT meeting related to five-laning Jeffersonville Rd. and portions of Millerfield until several days afterwards. At that point, we went to the GDOT office on Riverside Dr. and were allowed to see one large drawing of the project. After considering the design, we attempted to find a website where we could submit comments, but could not find one. We finally obtained your e:mail addresses from someone who did attend the meeting. I hope that you will be kind enough to forward our comments to the appropriate party for inclusion.   Sylvia & Jerry Flowers. 258 Avery Lane Macon, GA 31217 Phone: 478-986-6594 (home) 478-731-2645 (cell)   COMMENTS TO PROJECT: Jeffersonville Road/Millerfield Road project #STP00-3223-00(004)/BRMLB-3223-00(006), STP00-3223---(002), STP00-3223-00(005), etc.   As owners of two houses at 2328 Millerfield Rd., within the project area, and another at 2385 Millerfield Rd. near the project’s terminus, we frequently travel these two-lane residential roads. We have never seen them congested, by any rational definition of that word. Occasionally, we must slow down or stop for another driver to make a turn or for pedestrians walking along/crossing the road, bicycle riders, children in the street, or someone on a motorized wheelchair traveling along/crossing the roadway. Because such activities are everyday occurrences, the thought of a five-lane expressway through this residential area is terrifying to say the least – not to mention, the excessive noise a thoroughfare of this type would inflict upon the primarily-minority families living in homes that are already situated close to the roads.   Additionally, we daily travelled the portion of this route between Highway 49 and Emery Highway to and from work for 30 years before we retired.  We can tell you, from long experience, that traffic on Millerfield and Jeffersonville Rds has slowly dwindled over the years. Also, four-lane-divided Emery Highway runs almost parallel to Jeffersonville Rd.  It is only a mile or so farther to travel Emery Highway and reach the same point where Jeffersonville Rd. joins Highway 57. For these reasons, we believe the project is exceedingly over-designed and will cause a great amount of harm to this residential area at an unnecessary, ridiculously high cost to already-overburdened taxpayers.   All that is needed for convenience and safety in this project area are turn lanes at several locations on Jeffersonville Road; sidewalks where they are lacking (and, perhaps, bike lanes); modernization of the bridge over Walnut Creek; and repaving of Jeffersonville Rd.  Millerfield Rd. was widened and repave just a few years ago. Any further public transportation funds should be earmarked for much-needed road and bridge repairs-repaving elsewhere.       Date: Sat, 07 Jan 2012 To: Michael H Murdoch PhD  <mmurdoch@dot.ga.gov> From: Holliday Dental <teeth@mindspring.com> Subject: Traffic Count Projection Abuse  -- Jeffersonville Rd  Michael H Murdoch, PhD. NEPA Team Leader GDOT Office of Environmental Services 600 West Peachtree St.  Atlanta, GA 30308 404-631-1178 mmurdoch@dot.ga.gov Dear Dr Murdoch, Lee Martin and I enjoyed speaking with you last Thursday evening at the public hearing for the Jeffersonville Road project.  We informed you about the history of traffic projection abuse in our MPO.  The MATS-CAC (Citizens Advisory Committee to the Macon Area Transportation Study) has repeatedly expressed our deep concerns about local  "traffic projections" being arbitrary, capricious and inaccurate.  These inaccurate projections are used as the principal justification for "supersizing" various road projects in our MPO.  Besides the initial waste of taxpayers money, the long term effects of a too-large road facility are the safety problems from induced speeding and the dehumanizing effects of louder road noise pollution from faster traffic thru historical neighborhoods.  The Jeffersonville Road expansion project will place 57 homes in non-attainment for noise pollution.  Each of these 57 homes along Jeffersonville should be offered a full buy-out of the property if the road plans are to proceed.  This website documents the unacceptable inaccuracy of traffic projections used by our MPO. http://www.macon-bibb.com/FHR/traffic.htm All the inaccurate projections were done by the (M-A) Moreland-Altobelli contractor(s) who are also the project managers for the Jeffersonville Rd project.  It is not acceptable for M-A to continue to profit off the taxpayers by dumping ridiculous traffic projection assumptions on our MPO.   The current Jeffersonville ADT counts are at 10,000.  This count has been flat for over 5 years.  GDOT guidelines instruct that traffic projections must be most heavily weighted to the historical trend of the past 5 years.  This trend has been flat.  It is absurd for M-A to project the traffic to increase to over 14,000 and 17,000 for this road given the past 5 years of flat counts.  M-A projections have proven miserably inaccurate for the Houston Road project and for the Forest Hill Road projects mentioned in the website referenced above.  Thank-you for your consideration of this situation.   Please involve the MATS-CAC in any discussions at GDOT about the accusations in this email and in the website.   Please inform us of any official discussions about these traffic projections if we are not in attendance at any meeting where this issue is discussed.  We have a right to support our position and to refute any inaccuracies promulgated by self-serving M-A propositions.  Please add this letter to the official comments for the Jeffersonville project.  Please email me a copy of the Court Reporter transcripts from the Thursday public hearing when they become available.  (Open Records Request) Thank-you, - Lindsay Holliday copy to MATS-CAC  PS: Even if the traffic count was at 17,000, a two lane facility with turn lanes where needed could serve better than a number of roads in Atlanta where 2 lanes carry well over 20,000.  A single lane Roundabout at Millerfield would reduce idling, delays, noise and air pollution, and reduce accident rates and maintenance expenses.  Single lane Roundabouts can easily handle 25,000 ADT.  The Bike Path must continue on to the Indian Mounds to have continuity with Heritage Trail there which then connects towards businesses and other destinations in town.  Biking is not just recreational, but it is an important transportation option for those without cars who want a far more efficient option than walking.	Jeffersonville     Road   CONCERNS
	To: Telegraph Letters Sent: Friday, April 07, 2006 9:38 AM Subject: Issue bigger than roundabouts and drainage     In yesterday’s mail was the Georgia DOT’s 11-page response to 84 comments received from citizens concerned about the Sardis Church Road extension project. None of the comments received a favorable answer, and none of the 22 homes and 3 businesses scheduled for demolition will be spared.   But, what really bugs me is this from the report: “The State Historic Preservation Officer considers the Hudson farmstead eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. The historic resource survey was completed in 1999.   “As the Hudson Farmstead is a privately-owned parcel of land (located at the proposed I-75/SCR interchange), the property owner has the right to develop it or preserve it as he or she sees fit. The only area that is anticipated to convert to commercial type use is the area immediately around the proposed interchange.”   Since the farmstead has not been placed on the historic list after a lapse of seven years, one has to wonder what the heck is going on. My guess is the farmstead will quietly disappear from the list after the interchange is completed, and, just as the DOT said, it will “convert to commercial type use.”   Meanwhile, preservation of the “historic farmstead” will require the construction of a non-traditional interstate interchange and the rerouting of Nowell Road—probably at additional cost—and the destruction of seven homes.   Just as it did with the Forest Hill Road project, The Telegraph’s editorial board must weigh-in on the use of the NRHP as a means to a commercial end. This is a bigger issue than roundabouts and drainage.                                                                         Lee Ballard                                                                         Macon