Hwy 74 Issues

[Don Haddix]

A number of issues involving Hwy 74 are in the public eye, currently.

On the golf cart access issues to and within Wilksmoor, there will be connections and crossings added to 74, but not until the widening is completed on the related stretch of 74.

The related 54/CSX bridge issue is still several months away from completion.

As for the sound wall landscaping, etc., if you look back to my 2007 election forum, you will see I stated that discussions with GDOT should have already been long occurring. But they were not because Council took the position this is a GDOT, not a PTC responsibility.

Now, we are seeing the white, blank and, my personal opinion, ugly graffiti inviting walls that needs to be covered.

In many parts there is not enough room for a screening wall of trees and, by homes, trees do not meet GDOT protection requirements according to the nature of the geography. Further, the sidewalk should have been wider.

So, when various ideas were presented for screening the wall, the ivy wall was my suggestion. It will give complete coverage and is low to no maintenance. But it could not, as I noted, attach directly to the wall since that would affect the integrity and sound dampening properties of the sound wall.

David Rast did the research and found an effective ivy system that would meet our needs.

I believe that, at least on the very narrow areas, the ivy could be allowed to function as ground cover as well.

The $50,000.00 from the State is a grant restricted to Gateways into cities. It cannot be used for anything else, but is a perfect fit for here.

For the rest of the areas we need low to no maintenance ground cover, since we will be responsible for keeping it maintained properly. Trees can be used to fill in the voids in the wall line due to no homes in proximity that require a wall.

Bottom line is we need a efficient, good looking and low cost solution for these areas. Living green is best and is not a graffiti billboard.

There is still a lot of work left for GDOT on the southern portion of 74. That includes reinstalling pressure activated lights versus the current timed lights and continued pursuit of a light at BSC. But those are, again, issues that requires that portion of 74 be completed, first.

As for the median cuts for access to a number of places, that gets into an issue of GDOT minimum distance requirements between median cuts, special exceptions, and a lot of other issues. More things that I believe should have demanded more PTC involvement in the planning stages, since rework is a real struggle to get approved by GDOT.

I have to say here that it is hard working with GDOT on such issues. They are very by the book on a lot of things and dislike doing work arounds. So the earlier involved them better the chances of success.

74 is no where near complete. With this economy we can never tell, day to day, what changes will be made due to budget and other cuts and changes.