Wesleyan Drive:

Original designs for Wesleyan Drive included more than 54 feet of roadway, gutters and sidewalks with multiple turning lanes, and a separate project at the Rivoli Drive intersection. This Rivoli project turned two lane Rivoli Drive into the equivalent of seven lanes at one point (See Design) Presently, the two projects have been combined into one project and, we are very pleased to report, tremendously scaled back. Wesleyan Drive will not have a third lane, nor will it be widened. Though residents were willing to see a well planned sidewalk on one side of the road, all plans for sidewalks have been scrapped. Construction is proposed only in three places: Trojan Trail, and Tharpe and Rivoli Drive.  The current designs were presented to the Technical Advisory Committee and Executive Committee as being Walter Kulash's recommendations.   They were NOT.  No correspondence from Kulash's office included removal of hills from Wesleyan Drive.  When challenged at the August 6, 1999 meeting, Moreland Altobelli officials said there was plenty time to change the designs and that the design was not awarded to anyone--however the "scope of work" which engineering firms have been asked to bid on includes removal of at least one hill, maybe two, which was considered and excluded by Kulash.    Kulash will be making a clarification shortly about his recommendations.   By putting the project out to bid for design work without gathering public input about the design, and ignoring Kulash's recommendations, communicates to us that the road program is either wasting money by paying for something which will require redesign at a later date, or they do not care what the public says about their roads.

At Rivoli Drive intersection, the current design has been scaled back to a plan the local affected residents can live with. An unresolved issue remains: Where will telephone poles be moves to and will this threaten any of the resident's Cherry trees?

At Trojan Trail intersection, long, wide turning lanes are proposed on Wesleyan Drive. A traffic light is being considered. Residents have asked the engineers to consider four-laneing Trojan Trail removing the solution to the problem from Wesleyan Drive to Trojan Trail. Residents argue that the school traffic congestion is only for brief periods twice a day and does not tie up a car more than some traffic lights in town--hardly worth the money spent, the damage to residents property and to the road in general. Interestingly, Tattnall Academy does not support the proposals either.

At Tharpe intersection  turning lanes are proposed on Tharpe and Wesleyan Drive. Most of these lanes make little sense since very few people turn in the direction the lanes access. (It would return you to Northside Drive from whence you just came.  The same is true for the right hand turning lane on Tharpe turning on to Wesleyan Drive.  See Tharpe design.) Moreland Altobelli explained these turning lanes are to aid in the detour during construction. Residents said there are other good detours using existing roads; they would prefer not to have permanent asphalt simply to relieve a temporary detour problem. The design calls for lowering one or two hills in front of White House Plantation to improve sight distance for people turning left from Tharpe onto Wesleyan. Kulash proposes simply placing a traffic light at Tharpe to relieve the problem. Residents find the traffic light proposal appealing because it reduces the need for construction and further "calms" the traffic on Wesleyan Drive (which has been officially measured to exceed the speed limit, on average, by 15 MPH.) In a later discussion, Moreland Altobelli said the reduction of hills approaching Tharpe was necessary because the traffic light will not be seen as one approaches the second hill from Tharpe and stacked traffic could be a hazard if a speeding car is unaware there are stopped cars in the valley between the two hills. Traffic would need to be stacked for two-tenths of a mile and the approaching car would have to be traveling a good bit over the speed limit for this to be a problem. We are awaiting Kulash's response to this concern.  (Most residents agree there is a sight problem at the Tharpe intersection which needs attention, but they are concerned that the most drastic, expensive and road altering solution has been chosen with out considering other less intrusive alternatives.  Adding an additional traffic light hung higher or advanced warning light seems to answer Moreland Altobelli's concern--the light may not be seen far enough in advance of the intersection--without tearing up the roads and adding additional unnecessary turning lanes only to relieve construction detour problems.  Any retaining walls would not be welcomed.)

Residents do not understand why all the proposals for Wesleyan Drive by Moreland Altobelli, even when proposed in the name of safety, have the impact of encouraging faster speeds on Wesleyan Drive rather than relieving the biggest problem currently on the road: excessive speed. We would like to see engineering remedies to the speed problem.

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