Park Street
Whether you are a homeowner or renter, the purposed widening of Park Street from a 2 lane street to 4 lanes, 2 sidewalks, median, gutters and curbs will effect all residents of Park Street,
Parkwood, Euclid, Avon Rd., Rest Haven & Berkley.
As for Park Street residents, homes will be demolished on both sides of the street. As for the other streets, noise, pollution and property depreciation will be your biggest problem.
For the purpose of familiarizing homeowners with the project proposal, a copy of the construction plan has been obtained and will be placed at Mr. & Mrs. Strong's house on the corner of Park St. and
Berkely Dr. According to this blueprint, at least 7 houses will be destroyed. The brick house on the end of the street was purchased by Bibb Co. about a year ago, also the apartment building facing Napier. Six other homes have been targeted for removal: Sharon Lamar (2 houses), C.R. Ward, Lester Johnson, L. Strickland and the
Strong's. It could be that some of you are aware of these plans and maybe you have sold to the Co. already. As for other homes, the closeness of the road to the front door will force a sale.
This is not a done deal. The secretary at Moreland-Altobelli has said that these plans will be reviewed by Mr.
Kulash, who has been hired to review many of the road plans. He is considered to be "neighborhood friendly, so it's possible he will recommend our views to the planning committee.
We need to get together as a group and decide exactly what we want (how many lanes & etc.) before Mr. Kulash comes to Macon to review the Forest Hill project.
If you agree that we should do this, call either Sandra Grover, 477-0124 or Jeanine Mason, 994-4644 and we will decide when and where to meet to discuss this very important issue. Please don't put it off, your neighborhood could be abolished if we roll over and play dead.
If you would like to look at the plans, call Mr. Strong at 477-0549.
Jeanine Mason
Project: Northwest Parkway (Park Street segment).
Proposed Improvements:
Widening of Park Street from two lanes (three lanes at its intersection with Vineville) to 5 lanes for its full length between Vineville and Napier.
Existing Conditions:
Single family residential frontage except at intersections with Vineville and Napier. Busy morning and afternoon peak hour traffic, light traffic at all other times. Recently improved intersection with Vineville, inadequate intersection at Napier.
Neighborhood Concerns:
1. The improvements proposed for Park Street are excessive: the existing two lanes adequately handle through traffic, limited only by the capacity of the intersections. Napier in particular would benefit from a left turn lane; there is limited need for west-bound right-turn movements, as Vineville is the more direct route for northbound traffic. Even with the marginal intersection at Napier, stacking of traffic is not a problem; intersection improvements would further expedite traffic flow and eliminate the potential for traffic backup in the future, even with substantially increases in volume. There are relatively few turning movements between the Napier and Vineville intersections, as only two minor local streets intersect Park Street; they and access to residential properties fronting Park Street have never posed problems during peak hour. Accidents in this area are rare. A two lane road with intersection improvements would adequately carry any future load that would be reasonable for the area, and would minimize the intrusion on adjacent
residential property.
2. Park Street is fronted by owner-occupied single family housing units for most of its length between Vineville and Napier. The homes in the neighborhood are primarily owner-occupied and well-maintained. Many of the residents are elderly and long-time residents of the neighborhood; the excessive street width proposed will accelerate speed on Park Street and bring the roadway and sidewalks close to the fronts of the homes, destroying the viability of the neighborhood for residential use and leading to abandonment and/or downgrading of homes in a currently stable residential environment. This will contribute to urban blight and deterioration of a vibrant neighborhood. An extreme hardship will be imposed on elderly residents who will lose their neighborhood and their homes, with limited resources for replacing either.
3. System alternates are available that are broadly beneficial in relieving traffic on Forest Hill Drive and Vineville; these would also relieve the future traffic load on Park Street to reasonable levels. The Road Improvement Program has not examined these alternatives.
From: Daniel Fischer
Sent: Friday, October 01, 1999 12:19 PM
To: Walter Kulash
Subject: Northwest Connector (for Mr. Kulash)
Greetings! I understand you are currently working on Park and the Park
extension. I thought it timely to share some thoughts.The driving force behind the Forest Hill/Park design is a serious misclassification/over-classification of Forest Hill. It should NOT be considered a major arterial, given the limits to its expansion (residential frontage, terrain, etc.), the character of the residential neighborhoods it traverses, and the lack of a down-stream outlet: it makes no sense to continue to encourage additional traffic on the Vineville/Forseyth corridor, when that corridor cannot handle additional traffic without completely destroying its historic character and viability. I concur with the logic of extending Park to the west, but only as a two lane collector as it will serve limited traffic, primarily to Macon State College; this traffic currently goes south on Napier to Log Cabin (I drive Napier daily during rush hour: it is far from capacity.
This route is NOT an attractive "long-cut" to the Macon Mall, as it goes too far to the west and requires traffic to make a left turn on an extremely congested intersection (Log Cabin/Mercer U. Avenue).
Incidentally, traffic to the Mall is off-peak, and does not stress the current system. There is no where near enough traffic to justify 4 or 5 lane facilities on Forest Hill, Park or the proposed connector, unless traffic is artificially encouraged or forced to use this route. The primary destination will be Macon State University and the businesses in the vicinity of Mercer U. Avenue and I-475.The primary alternative is to upgrade Northside Ave to major arterial status (now limited to the section between Tom Hill Sr. and Forest Hill) and use it to intercept and redirect traffic that by default now uses Forest Hill. A westward extension of Northside to Bass and an I-75 interchange at Northside/Riverside would drastically reduce the loading on Forest Hill and the Tom Hill Sr/I-75 interchange (it would be relatively inexpensive to construct, as north-bound traffic could exit on the existing Red Oak overpass).
I've brought these concepts up continually over the past year; the reaction I've gotten is that "we've always called Forest Hill a major arterial." Not much propensity for creative thinking - or considering more effective, less expensive, and less disruptive alternatives.