What about Pine Street? - The Public Meeting

 

A meeting was held at the city auditorium on December 6th by Todd Sullivan, asst. Engineer at the city of Florence, where he stated it was to be more of an information meeting as to “where we are” rather than input from the public. He stated there had been “a couple of meetings along the way” and gotten input from “different places” such as UNA police and “others”. To this reporter's knowledge, these “others” did not include those who would be paying for this alteration of Pine Street. Florence taxpayers. And had it not been for some on social media announcing this meeting, Mr. David Carson would not have attended and recorded it for the public to view on You Tube channel, Florence Patriots which your humble reporter took the information on this meeting from. Was this to be the last meeting for the public? When was the first public meeting held? 

Mr. Sullivan explained that first, there had been some crosswalks added to the plan. One at Norton auditorium going across Pine St. This would connect the parking lot west of Pine. The other at Flowers Hall to the UNA practice field across Pine St. The question was not asked so I will post it here. Are there not already traffic lights WITH crosswalks at these locations? Then he dropped what some would consider the bombshell. The design had incorporated making Pine St. 2 lane with a bike lane running north and south all the way from Cypress Mill Rd.! While it is true that this would seem to hamper speeding in the area, this would also effectively disconnect Pine St. from being a major route to the downtown area.

One of the first questions asked was “Where would all the current traffic go?” Mr. Sullivan answered that “studies” had been done that showed that going from a 4 lane to a 2 lane with a “turning” lane could handle the same amount of traffic. Firstly, the terminology had suddenly been changed from a “bike” lane to a “turning” lane and secondly the name of this “study” was not given in the answer. Mr. Sullivan did give an example of a motorist attempting to make a left hand turn in one of the “hilly” sections of Pine but failed to mention that the only street available to make a left hand turn at present; Lelia St., is a one-way westward direction now. The same questioner asked about the proposal for parking along Pine. Mr. Sullivan stated “angle” parking would be only along the area at Kilby school. He seemed to not answer the follow-up question about those backing into Pine St causing a bottleneck.

The second questioner for me hit the nail on the head. “How much is all this going to cost and is UNA going to pay for any of it?” With this, Mr. Sullivan seemed to stammer but did say that “resurfacing” to go all the way to Cypress Mill Lane would be $600K to $700K, most of which would be asphalt cost. When pressed he cited a “court ordered study performed by NACOLG” on the effects on pedestrian traffic from Cypress Mill Rd. to Dr. Hicks Blvd. When another citizen asked whatever happened to the plan to build an overpass for the students to use when crossing Pine St., she was told that it would be “difficult” to convince the students to use it. They would not “congregate” properly. Evidently, Florence motorists are more “pliable”. He could not answer the question also of how many students cross Pine St on a daily basis.

From this point the meeting dissolved into a tap dance of the same talking points. An interesting remark came from city councilman Bill Griffin about installing cameras to record the license plates of speeding vehicles using Pine St . It would only cost $25 to $30K each. A suburb of Birmingham had recently installed these and they were “inexpensive”. He also stated Florence should foot the bill for any reconfiguration of Pine St since it was a city street and UNA should write traffic tickets on Pine St. (the FACT that most of Pine St does not border UNA’s campus seemed not to matter.) Mr. Sullivan ended the meeting by stating this “court-ordered study” was showing that the entire structure of Pine St should be changed. The traffic flow, the pedestrian and bike path, all should be made more accommodating. He did not come right out and say it was meant to be accommodating for UNA and their students. He did not need to. 

A lingering question for me is one that was asked at the first of the meeting and was not answered at this meeting: Who will pay for it? UNA or the Florence taxpayers? And just one more question if I may; how will those in North Florence get downtown? Well ok, two then - we still don't know WHAT ABOUT PINE ST.?

*****

We have one question to add: what about the new football stadium? No, we're not talking about traffic when the new field arrives. We want to know how much of this new construction on Pine Street will have to be torn out and redone completely to accommodate entrance and egress at the stadium.

Doesn't it make much more sense to complete the new stadium and the street alterations at the same time? Common sense - that commodity is in very short supply in each of the Shoals municipalities. 

Everything's Okay - Leo Just Ate the Engineer for Lunch