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| Crowded room at St. Patricks for City Open House. |
I commend the city for hosting the open house, and city council 1.0 for putting this project on the agenda. My question is - why did it take so long? And do we really have to wait until the fall of 2013, at the earliest, before the project breaks ground? If so, how long will it take to get a turn lane on Mt. Vernon?
I understand the estimated cost of construction is $1.6 million and the city doesn't have the funding to start the project any sooner. I get that. But maybe if we didn't spend $1.44 million on the Peachford Rd. extension - what's now being called the "road to nowhere" - maybe the city could start construction tomorrow? Or yesterday?
The Peachford Rd. extension will someday be part of the redevelopment of Georgetown. But the Tilly Mill/N. Peachtree/Peeler intersection has been a mess for years, and should have been addressed long before now. One of the reasons Mike Davis was elected mayor is because he gets it. Said Davis upon being elected, “we need to work on our priority list. We need to start at number one, then number two, then number three…not go to number 27 because we have a bunch of money burning a hole in our pockets.”
This project is a great example of starting at No.1.
While on road projects ...
One of my pet peeves is the rare occasions in which I have to drive my daughter to school at Dunwoody Elementary. I know it's not a priority of the city to fix the traffic disaster that is "morning drive" on Womack Rd. (not to mention afternoon drive), but man-o-man is it chaos!
Round trip from my house to the school is 1.9 miles. On Thursday morning that trip took 32 minutes. And that's an improvement from the last time I had to do it in December! In case you're keeping score, I averaged less than four mph. I think I violated Dunwoody's anti-idling law on multiple occasions.
4 comments:
Hey Bob, I'm not trying to be a wiseacre, but if you only averaged 4 miles per hour, why not just walk. To steal a line from Kerry, "I'm just say'n"
Don,
That's a darn good point! It will take a little longer, but the frustration level will decrease significantly.
Next time - we will walk!
As I write this the Mayor and City Council are probably concluding their day of "retreat" to discuss items for 2012. They have some tough choices to make given the City has just $1.5-2.5M of discretionary monies left to allocate. If Council 2.0 moves forward with the funding of Dunwoody Village Parkway that decision will fall in line with the decisions of Council 1.0 and their votes on on the 2 parcels of land in District 3 (Georgetown area) which locked up close to $7M dollars and have ZERO internal rate of return!
The reasoning I hear for all of these projects is emotional and not objective based on proven economic return or demonstrable benefit to the City!
So, now if the Mayor and Council move forward with the re-do of DVP we can add that $1.1M to the $6.5-7M that Council 1.0 spent, and we'll have little to show for it.
Council 2.0 needs to re-visit the land assets the City owns and determine how to leverage them for the greater good!
And Bob, Don's point about walking is a great one. Except for cold or rainy days, it will jump start you and you kids metabolism, give you better quality time to talk to them, and who knows, you could set a trend and help eliminate some cars off of Womack! And when you run for Council - you can point to how you're a "sustainable" guy!
I'm just sayin'.......(cheap plug)
Kerry,
100% agreement. The City would actually save closer to 1.2 million if we nix the DVP plan. With contingency funds, we could get this project started at the close of GPC's Spring semester in 2013. That's the earliest we can find the funding for it.
We discussed the length of time it's taken to get the Tilly Mill/N. Peachtree project off the ground today at the City Council retreat. The traffic studies, site studies, etc. took over 18 months to complete. We completed our Transportation Master Plan less than a year ago. It was during the TMP process that this intersection receive priority status.
As far as the N. Shallowford Rd. property acquisition, I claim no part in that. I was sick as a dog (definition: fever > than 101, can't lift head off pillow) that night. The vote was 4-2. My "nay" would not have changed the outcome.
Adrian
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