Solution doesn't bypass problems

Davis Russell

2008-05-27 13:35:55

I am writing in response to the article on the Broadview Avenue study completion printed in the May 21 edition ("Consultant wraps up Broadview renovation study").

I was nearly floored when I read the statement by Chris Mothershead that said the town's number-one priority was to open up the Timber Fence Parkway from over near U.S. 211 to Bear Wallow Road.

Has Mr. Mothershead or the town council bothered to think of where that extra traffic will go when it hits Bear Wallow Road?

That extra traffic has one of two options. It will either use Foxcroft Street as a "cut through" or it will use the disaster of an intersection that lies between the Exxon and the cleaners (across from the Petco shopping center).

Neither of these options is adequate for the increased traffic that will be proceeding down Timber Fence Parkway.

Residents on Foxcroft have long complained about "cut through" traffic and have been proponents of a U.S. 211-to-U.S. 17 connector. This plan by Mothershead and the town council is a disaster for them. These residents are getting their connector — unfortunately for them, it may have become their street.

I had also heard rumors at one point that the Foxcroft/U.S 17 intersection would be closed, thus diverting all of the traffic down Bear Wallow Road to that poorly designed intersection mentioned above (behind the Exxon).

Just as Foxcroft residents have complained about increased traffic, so have the residents on Bear Wallow.

Apparently their vote or safety is not as important to the town council or Center District SupervisorTerry Nyhous as the residents on Norfolk Street (where the traffic will be diverted from). For, if Foxcroft is blocked off, all of that extra traffic will be whizzing by their front doors down Bear Wallow.

Finally, the intersection behind the Exxon is so poorly designed that it is the site of many accidents. It is nearly impossible to make a left turn out of that intersection or into that intersection.

Has Mothershead or the council (or Nyhous) given any thought how to manage this increased traffic through this intersection? My guess is not.

As has been typical of the town council and Nyhous' plan to divert traffic off Broadview, they do not look for solutions. Instead they merely look to move the problem from one neighborhood to another.

Will this town (or county) ever get leaders who can think outside of the old plans and come up with something new that will not only solve the Broadview problem, but not jeopardize the safety of one set of neighbors in order to increase the safety of another set?

Or is this plan by Mothershead, the town council and Nyhous a way for the town to strong-arm the county into putting the U.S. 211/U.S. 17 connector back into the comprehensive plan?

By creating a situation so unsafe, and sacrificing a few residents' lives, they may achieve their goal of the Nyhous Bypass to completely wreck the neighborhoods of Old Gold Cup and Silver Cup.

After all, the people in those neighborhoods shouldn't even be there in the first place, should they?

Davis Russell

Warrenton