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Local panel
may have power to fight road plan
By Travis Fain
TELEGRAPH STAFF
WRITER
The fight over
Forest Hill Road has led to an over-arching question about roads
projects: Who really calls the shots?
The Georgia
Department of Transportation and its consultants have long been
considered an 800-pound gorilla when it comes to roads projects,
largely because the DOT controls millions of dollars in roads
construction funding.
But Forest Hill
Road - though it has been named a temporary state route so the DOT will
pay for its planned widening - is a local street. The design money for
the widening was raised through a 1-cent sales tax, which is controlled
by the Bibb County Commission. Most of the section slated for widening
is in the city limits, and the Macon City Council has asked the DOT
repeatedly to reconsider the design.
Local road
construction priorities are set by the Macon Area Transportation Study
group and, specifically, the group's top committee. This policy
committee is made up of 16 local leaders with significant
decision-making power.
After failing to
get the DOT to consider a redesign for Forest Hill - one of many failed
attempts by various people and groups - the Macon City Council may try
to leverage MATS' power against the department.
But the clock is
ticking. The DOT is slated to start buying rights-of-way for the
widening project in June. Construction contracts are expected to go out
in December 2007, with the road opening about two years later,
according to the DOT's schedule. The next MATS Policy Committee meeting
is April 5.
Macon Councilman
Mike Cranford recently sponsored a resolution that calls on the DOT,
the Federal Highway Administration and MATS to reconsider the Forest
Hill Road widening and consider using roundabouts at five intersections
instead of traditional signalized intersections.
But since the DOT
already has said roundabouts aren't an option on the project, which has
been in the planning stages since 1997, and the Federal Highway
Administration is based in Washington D.C., much of the focus has
fallen on the local power of MATS.
How much power that
body has over the larger transportation entities remains to be seen,
but Mercer University law professor David Oedel said federal law gives
the committee significant sway.
"In other words,
MATS is invested with federal authority," he said. "That federal
authority, if push comes to shove, should result in MATS prevailing
over Georgia DOT in any kind of an outright fight."
But such a fight,
local and state roads officials say, could kill the project altogether.
Several high-ranking officials said the committee can't force a change
in the design, so much as it can remove it from the Macon area's
Transportation Improvement Program. That's the planning document that
sets out road projects to be done over the next several years.
"(MATS controls)
whether the project is in their plan or not," said Ben Buchan, DOT
state urban design engineer. "For the federal monies to be allocated to
it, it has to be part of the plan. ... It would be taking the project
out of your program."
"This has never
been previously done," said Don Tussing, a planner with the Macon-Bibb
County Planning & Zoning Commission. "If you do that, it just all
disappears ... and you're still left with a problem out there."
The problem is
high-traffic volume - though project critics question traffic
projections along Forest Hill Road, which have varied widely. Planners
and engineers also consider Forest Hill Road a dangerous road that
needs its curbs smoothed out. As it stands now, the project also
includes sidewalks and curb and gutter - high priorities for several
local officials, including Macon Mayor Jack Ellis, who sits on the
policy committee.
Ellis has led other
pushes to redesign the road project, but he's advocated traditional
turn lanes at major intersections as opposed to the roundabouts plan.
But his attempts haven't mustered the needed votes. Unless something
changes, a renewed effort may never get past the MATS committee.
"The MATS Policy
Committee - people will vote the way they're going to vote," Ellis said.
Bibb County
Commission Chairman Charlie Bishop, chairman of the policy committee,
said he will keep an open mind. But he also noted the state's
significant role in road design and that the county's roads program
doesn't have any money earmarked to redesign Forest Hill Road.
"I don't want to
talk out of school," Bishop said. "Until I see what the city's asking
for, I'm really talking prematurely."
Macon Councilman
Stebin Horne, who also sits on the committee, said his goal is to get
the DOT to consider a redesign. He said he hopes to bring the council's
resolution to the policy committee in April. Cranford said it's time to
find out whether committee members are "there for Macon" or "just a
step-child of GDOT."
"As an attorney, I
always believe reasonable minds can differ," Cranford said. "But when
it comes down the people ... we're the ones who are going to have to
live with (this road), good, bad or indifferent."
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