Dunwoody’s $100 million Transportation Plans

Look It Up

If you look up the City of Dunwoody Comprehensive Transportation Plan and page down to Table 10 page 69 you will see the project lists and estimated costs. You can copy and paste these sheets to an excel file, you will then be able read the small print. Cut and paste the categories, dates, priority and costs to other columns on the worksheet and you can sort these projects by category. The project lists on pages 69 to 75, show over $100 million in projects, plus some projects with costs to be determined (TBD).

$100 Million Plan

Half of the $100 million goes to Bike lanes, sidewalks, bike and walking trails and multi-modal streets additionally accommodating buses and shuttles along with walking and biking. Only 5% use buses, shuttles and bikes at this point. More than that walk for exercise, but much of that amounts to walking around the subdivision.

The other $50 million goes to $1 million traffic light controls, widening streets to allow for left turn center lanes and intersections. The only T-SPLOST project included in the July 2012 vote is the re-do of Mt Vernon from the Sandy Springs line to Dunwoody Club.

Road Replacement Plan

Totally separate from this list of projects is our road milling, resurfacing and replacement, quoted as having a replacement value of $216 million. The city has 185 centerline miles of roadway with a replacement cost value of $216 million. Per mile cost to replace is $216 million divided by 185 centerline miles = $1.167,568 million per centerline mile. That’s if the roads needed to be totally replaced or added. This program is a “worst first” program stretched out over 30 years. It is paid for within the city budget. So far, milling and resurfacing has worked on Dunwoody Club and Roberts Road. I thought milling and resurfacing would cost $100 thousand per mile, but it seems to be higher.

The cost estimates on these project sheets are higher than I thought they might be, but some include expensive solutions for intersections, like roundabouts, bike lanes and 6 foot wide sidewalks. We are about to learn about easements and Eminent Domain. We will also learn how much more expensive multi-modal redesign would be vs. milling, widening and resurfacing.

Eminent Domain

It’s clear that widening main roads will involve taking some property from folks whose properties touch these main roads. When the GDOT is doing the project, you will receive a letter about the time when their surveyors are putting stakes into your yard. This is happening now on N. Peachtree Rd. in connection with the Safe School biking and walking program for Kingsley Elementary.

Integrated with Master Plans

These road changes are integrated in with the Dunwoody Village and Georgetown Master Plans and are tied in to the Land Use Plan. The owners of the Dunwoody Village property are not interested in the city’s Master Plan. In fact, building size and configuration have always been dictated by the anchor stores. Publics built a new larger building and so did Walgreens.

Live, Work & Play

This may work in an urban setting like PCID’s Transit Village, if you can actually walk or bike to work, but it doesn’t work in the suburbs. We want to be close to grocery stores, hardware stores, doctor’s offices, shoe repair, hair salons and exercise class. These don’t necessarily fit in the Dunwoody Village Master Plan. We drive to the store, because our groceries won’t fit on our bike.

No Interim Plans

There don’t seem to be any interim solutions to these projects. These plans appear to have been done by consultants to comply with ARC and LCI standards, riddled with expensive multi-modal upgrades. That could all go away after November 2012 along with whatever promised federal funding is factored in to these plans. The impetus for these programs include the global warming / man-made climate change hoax, UN Agenda 21 implementation and overreaching EPA air and water quality standards. These are all under attack because our economy can’t sustain the costs for these scams and private property rights are being trampled by these policies.

Main Roads Not A Priority

The main roads and intersections do not appear to be high priorities in this plan, nor do they appear to be planned in the near-term. On priority list 1 through 21, bike lanes, sidewalks and multi-modal changes take up $22.6 million of the $33.7 million total. Fixing Mt Vernon and the intersection at Chamblee Dunwoody Road is scheduled for 2021-2030.

Establish New Priorities

If our big problem is automobile traffic, you would think that the main roads and intersections would be fixes first, but instead, they are woven in with improvements that benefit 5% of our citizens and don’t solve the gridlock. They are also woven into the strip mall re-dos whose owners rejected the city Master Plan for their properties.

If we need to spend over $200 million on roads over the next 30 years, that would be about $7 million a year. Bonds are not the way to go because of interest costs. The Federal government is broke, so we shouldn’t count on federal grants after 2012. We need to manage very carefully.

PCID Gridlock

The gridlock at Perimeter CID is not addressed in the Dunwoody Transportation Plan, but will be described between now and July 2012 in preparation for the Regional Transportation Plan T-SPLOST vote. If the T-SPLOST (MARTA bail-out) fails to pass, PCID will need a Plan B for traffic abatement..

The T-SPLOST includes $12 million for improvements on Mount Vernon Road from the Fulton County line to Dunwoody Club Drive. Improvements include center turn lanes, sidewalks and bike lanes, along with intersections improvements at Vermack Road and Tilly Mill Road. Construction is expected between 2016 and 2019.

GDOT is in the process of changing the Ashford Dunwoody exit from I-285 into a “Diverging Diamond or double cross-over diamond”. When you exit from I-285 to Ashford Dunwoody Road, you will find yourself in the left lane. Imagine that at night, in the rain, after you’ve been terrorized by 18 wheelers, confusing exit sighs and lanes disappearing for 12 hours..

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader