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ATHENS NEWS AND VIEWS
Amateur Experts: Has anyone else noticed that
the moment somebody brings up the idea of
reconfiguring city streets from four lanes to
three—especially if bike lanes are involved—
people start coming out of the woodwork to
fuss about how incapable of making rational
decisions anyone associated with the govern
ment is? The conversion of Hawthorne Avenue
from four fast, narrow, winding lanes to a
much less stress-inducing three with—travesty
of travesties!—bike lanes in each direction
has remained, for almost 10 years, a bright-
red sore spot for letter-writers and online
commenters, who bring up the "disaster" (of
occasional rush-hour back-ups at stoplights,
apparently) resulting from that endeavor every
time a similar project is proposed.
Make It Fit: "It's like government-funding
Tetris," says Commissioner Kelly Girtz of the
challenges inherent in figuring out a way to
pay for a downtown master plan. It's a won
derful comparison: with all the intractable and
rigidly boundaried potential sources for funds,
the trick is going to be to get them all turned
in the right direction so they can interlock to
form something solid—a baseline, if you will,
upon which future, higher-reaching pieces of
the downtown infrastructure can fall cleanly
into place. And speaking of infrastructure, how
hard would it be to argue that a master plan
qualifies to be categorized as an investment
in such, and thus to be funded, at least par
tially, by SPLOST revenues? If one imagines
that a master plan would function as a source
Frequent lane changes made necessary by the current four-lane configuration of Pulaski Street downtown can
make things challenging for drivers and cyclists alike.
The Athens-Clarke County Commission's
vote last week to three-lane two of three
streets that are about to be repaved has been
no exception. (Each was considered in accor
dance with a policy set in 2005; the remain
ing four-lane stretch of Hawthorne between
Oglethorpe and Prince avenues was rejected
because projected traffic counts were higher
than the policy's specified maximum.) The
decision to three-lane Athens West Parkway
(a lightly travelled connector that will never
see a backup) and Pulaski Street from Prince
to Broad (a downtown border that currently
forces motorists to change lanes multiple
times in four blocks and sees especially fre
quent use by cyclists) was met by a barrage
of outrageously negative comments on the
Athens Banner-Herald website, not to mention
some rather surprising dissent from within
the commission itself. Harry Sims' reasoning
in voting against the Pulaski re-striping was
particularly puzzling: though he didn't seri
ously dispute county staff's reasoning on too-
frequent lane changes, he objected to giving
cyclists the "gift" of bike lanes, because he
often sees them disobeying traffic laws.
We all see too many irresponsible cyclists
endangering themselves and others by tak
ing liberties with the rules of the road (as we
also do many drivers and pedestrians), but
isn't Sims still cutting off his nose to spite
his face? Normalizing bike travel, especially in
such cost-effective ways, can only help allevi
ate that situation. And as for the chorus of
amateur traffic engineers, the Dope will take
the real ones' word for it, along with the find
ings of their painstaking, objective studies.
Guess that must be the Kool-Aid talking-
right, anonymous online commenters?
of clarity and guidance on planning and
design issues associated with SPLOST projects
like, for instance, the Classic Center expan
sion, then it follows that said plan would be
of at least similar value to such a project as,
say, several months of slogging through fruit
less public input sessions with high-dollar
architects on the clock and deadlines getting
deadlier. It's not the Dope's idea, but it's one
worth pressing with the legal eagles. And if it
can't work, then we sure better hope Girtz and
his fellow commissioners are banging on every
door they can find to get this thing done—
before history repeats itself again.
Bursting in Air: Speaking of Girtz, the super
district commissioner has been talking of
late about putting our civic Fourth of July
fireworks display together for next year,
after this year's was cancelled due to lack of
funding. The idea he's floating involves mov
ing the event from Bishop Park to someplace
more central—Lay Park, perhaps—and having
the celebration spill into downtown, where
he imagines a small street festival could be
organized. It's a terrific idea; Bishop has been
a wonderful location for the fireworks, but
Lay Park is just as accessible—probably to
more people, whether driving or walking—and
comes with a benefit Bishop doesn't: close
proximity to a dense, diverse business district.
With downtown businesses standing to receive
a boon from the influx of a few thousand
potential customers on a night that's usually
dead, it's a little easier to imagine folks pony
ing up to sponsor the 'splosions—and maybe
more.
Dave Nlarr news@llagpole com
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Thursday. June 23- Saturday. July 24.2011
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