JUNE 2012
Getting Serious About Transportation Guest Commentary
By Earl L. Jackson Jr. What a joy! After only forty-
one years of living in Jefferson County, I am able to witness a County Commissioner advocate planning for the future. Thanks to Lyn Widmyer. Now we are blessed with at least one Com- missioner that is not too ter- rified to peer into the future. However, peering into the fu- ture is fraught with opportuni- ties for failure. As Casey Stengel said “Never make predictions, especially about the future.” Today’s County Commission-
ers should give consideration to those who will serve on the Commission twenty years or even fifty years later. Far into the future, when things don’t turn out as they have predict-
ed, those future Commissioners can smile and be happy when things go wrong. Because they will have their predecessors to blame! And if we don’t start serious transportation planning now, there will be plenty of blame to go around. Excepting the so called
“Charles Town Bypass,” if you overlay a circa 1850s Howell map of Jefferson County with today’s map, there are very few changes. How they got from A to B on horseback or in a wagon is very similar to how we do it in an automobile. In another 150 years, most likely people will still get from A to B along the almost same routes. And they,
like us, will have to risk life and limb trying to navigate all those now stupid, sharp ninety degree turns that preserve land ownership boundaries! Hope- fully, at some point in the fu- ture, some genius will come up with the idea to eliminate those many sharp, deadly ninety de- gree curves. Here are a few recommenda- tions to consider: 1. Develop a transporta-
tion plan. Evaluate and classify the future traffic requirement of each wagon track. Based on those evaluations and clas- sifications, make predictions of the needs in the future. For example, will Flowing Springs Road of the future become a
four-lane limited access di- vided highway? How will it be routed? Where will clover leafs be located? In the interim, why can’t we get rid of those stupid twin ninety degree turns be- tween Jefferon High School and the railroad crossing, build a bridge over the Duffields rail- road track, and begin acquir- ing the right of way which the future Flowing Spring Road will require? 2. Incorporate emergency
services into transportation planning. Jefferson Memorial is building a new hospital south of Charles Town, but it is clev- erly located just beyond where Route 340 narrows to two lanes. If I am in an ambulance and
being rushed to the hospital, might it be my bad luck that there is a 30-car pile up on the two-lane portion of old Route 340? Is improved emergency access to the new hospital be- ing planned? 3. Engineer common sense highway entrances and ex- its. The Route 340/9 Charles Town Bypass was engineered as a “rural high-speed divided highway” with at-grade inter- sections. Yet there are almost no acceleration or deceleration lanes, and most of those that exist are too short for the post- ed speed limits. At the Halltown Road exit of 340 South, the for- mer quarter-mile deceleration lane was eliminated several years ago in favor of a hairpin turn at which motorists must go from the posted speed, 60 miles per hour, to effectively zero in about 150 feet. A 2010 study by the National Cooperative High- way Research Program (funded by the Federal Highway Admin- istration) found that a lead- ing cause of traffic fatalities on highways like Route 340/9 were poor sight lines and the absence of adequate accelera- tion and deceleration lanes. 4. Eliminate traffic lights
on major highways. Addition- ally, to save money, the WV DOT granted future access rights to every Tom, Dick, and Harry who owned land along the so-called “By-Pass.” Once those individu- als start to exercise those rights, the bypass will be transformed into a major parking lot deco- rated with traffic lights. When
FREE BOWLING 107 keyes ferry road charles town 304-725-0412
www.freebowlingwv.com
11
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32