Love bike lanes, but not changes to Rolling Hills
As a resident since 1972 of the neighborhood that borders Rolling Hills Drive, I, too, have thoughts about the recent changes of narrowing the traffic lanes, widening the bike lanes and adding barriers to Rolling Hills.
I have read the complaints by others and some responses by the city. The main reason I understand for the city justifying doing this is that it will make it safer as it will cut down on speeding on Rolling Hills. As a retired law enforcement person, I would say to this just like all laws on the books: Law-abiding persons will obey the laws while those who don't will continue to speed and drive recklessly.
Even at my age I am still a bike rider so I am in favor of having the bike lanes, but I just don't think the bike lanes needed to be widened and the barriers and posts added. I feel with the amount of traffic on Rolling Hills, the narrowed lanes with the barriers make it less safe to travel. I can speak from experience on this matter as I was almost taken out by an oncoming large truck in that slight curve as the driver for some reason was having difficulty staying in his lane, narrowly missing me as I had no place to go before he jerked the truck back from my lane.
Also, with the high density of traffic continuously on Rolling Hills, what did the city have in mind when encountering an emergency vehicle, fire truck, police car or ambulance, with the narrow lanes and the barriers that would prevent one from getting over as normally required? It would appear the same "let's do something different" logic, or illogic, that was used in the back-in parking on Block Street was used in making these changes on Rolling Hills Drive, not to mention the money and man hours it took to do it.
Jim Harter
Fayetteville
Are bond projects really critical needs?
According to an article in this newspaper, Fayetteville Mayor Lioneld Jordan in his annual address on Jan. 15 "described the state of the city as sound." However, on Dec. 18, Mayor Jordan signed an ordinance that said, "additional revenues can be obtained to finance critical capital improvement needs." In addition to restructuring prior bond issues, those critical capital improvement needs total to $23,865,000. Classifying the capital improvement needs of that size as "critical" implies the city is at crisis levels without those improvements. If this is true, it is hard to believe the state of the city is sound.
A more careful reading of the ordinance the City Council passed and Mayor Jordan approved leads to a question: How critical are some of the "improvements." A statement is made in the proposed bond issue: "The bonds described below ... may be issued in series from time to time." Approval by the voters would seem to give the city the right to sell the bonds the day after the election or possibly years after the election. Thus, there seems no time limit on the urgency of the critical improvements or the speed at with which they must be met. Such latitude suggests that some, or perhaps all, of the capital improvement needs are not all that critical.
Len White
Fayetteville
Editorial on 01/19/2019