Traffic out of control? Petition will be presented to Town Board Monday
Aug. 12. UPDATE 11:30 am. By Dave Vieser. It looks like South Street into Davison and the covered bridge in Antiquity are turning into altnerate travel routes as congestion builds in and around Cornelius. A petition with more than 100 signatures will be presented to the Cornelius Town Board Monday night seeking help with traffic rumbling through the Antiquity neighborhood.
Giselle Massi, who lives on Advocates Court near the Antiquity bridge, said the situation has become severe since construction began on I-77.
“I’m not a traffic engineer but I have been blessed with a good deal of common sense,” Massi said. “I fear that this situation is only going to get worse unless the town steps in now.”
More often than not, I-77 is now the alternate route for travel in and around Lake Norman. Discussions on the Exit 28 Ridiculousness page say cheater drivers are shooting down exit lanes and popping back into traffic, others are getting off northbound I-77 at Exit 30 in Davidson, and immediately re-entering I-77 on the other side of Griffith Street to resume northbound travel. Meanwhile, construction down the middle of I-77 has created a vast wasteland of dried clay that billows into the traffic lanes when it’s dry and breezy.
And some are cutting through Davidson and Antiquity for north- and southbound travel.
Massi is going to be asking the town to study the issue, and consider a number of traffic calming measures, such as road reflectors, stop signs, a lower speed limit and better signage. Meanwhile, a new development on the Davidson-Cornelius border, Antiquity Woods, could add more congestion to the area. The 16-arec project will have 107 houses and villas, along with a central garden and the Village Tavern Inn, a mixed-use building.
“Bottom line, the roads in Antiquity were never built to handle this type of traffic,” Massi said. Of course, the volume of cars increased after Harris Teeter opened, drawing shoppers from Davidson on South Street into Antiquity.
The Antiquity Homeowners Association has been working closely with the Town of Cornelius for more than a year on traffic safety concerns.
However, drivers looking for options to I-77, as well as the apartment complex being built now are raising more concerns, residents said.
Massi is also looking for help from the Davidson Town Board since the issue involves both jurisdictions.
Also at Monday’s meeting, Cornelius commissioners are expected to make a decision on a request for a zoning change on the southwest corner of the Grace Covenant Church property located on Highway 21. Approval would permit the erection of a new cell phone tower at that location.
The meeting begins at 7 pm, in the Board Meeting Room, Town Hall.
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This is what happens when our local and state leaders choose to ignore their constituents and keep developing land with no consideration for the consequences of having inadequate infrastructure in place. Over 90% of Lake Norman residents are against the I-77 tolls and we have been fighting this absurd toll lane project for years and asking for the general purpose lanes that are long overdue and deserved for LKN taxpayers. Thousands of us have attended town meetings, city council meetings, protests, signed petitions, and repeatedly called and emailed state legislators. However, we continue to be ignored. Instead of serving the public and community needs our “leaders” are hell bent on forcing this boondoggle of a project down our throats, while they continue to support widening other roads that are much less congested with general purpose lanes. The only logical explanation for such treatment and blatant disregard of our community is that they are only working to serve their own corrupt interests and greed.
We cannot be forced to use the I-77 toll lanes and the majority of people will NOT use them. In the end congestion will get even worse and the project will ultimately fail, further magnifying the short sightedness of our state and local leaders. When over 45 residents publicly spoke out against the tolls at the City Council meeting in January and offered great reasons why the toll project should be cancelled, we were once again ignored. Vi Lyles was even so arrogant as to tell us that we needed to find alternate routes to I-77. Guess what? We are.
Dawn is on point. Davidson, Cornelius & Huntersville leaders will continue to reap what they’ve sown for some time to come
A quick google search will demonstrate (and any traffic engineer will tell you) that stop signs should NOT be used for traffic calming or speed control. In fact, some studies have shown that installing stop signs actually increases vehicle speed as drivers try to make up for “lost time” at the stop sign.
Speed bumps are popular- at first- but after a while residents find them annoying because they are the ones using the roads most often. Traffic calming, unfortunately, is a tricky problem.
Cornelius used to have a Transportation Advisory Board (TAB) that looked into these things, but in 2013 the town board disbanded it shortly after the TAB came out against the I-77 toll project.
Thanks for all your insightful comments. Kurt, please visit our neighborhood and you will see the obvious need for a number of measures. Try telling our residents they don’t need stop signs and you’ll get a majority of residents saying there are no safe crossing zones, no painted white lines to walk across safely. Agreed, they may not always be effective for calming traffic, but they will offer some access to safer crossing of streets, that is now missing in much of our neighborhood. My other comments and recommendations are on public record.
Those interested in the discussion can join the public hearing at Town Hall, and follow the developments. Improvements are already beginning. Advocacy works! Contact me through gisellemassi.com — Giselle M. Massi
Here is the video presentation I gave to the Davidson Town Meeting, last Tues., August 9. Davidson Mayor John Woods kindly invited me to speak during the public comments, about the petition campaign called SAFETY ON SOUTH where I present my testimony, evidence and ask for an immediate public education campaign for residents and students affected by the increased problems at the approach and through the covered bridge in Antiquity. Only 3 mins. so had to speak uber fast to get it all in the public record:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5usmoLNZek&sns=fb
I will give a presentation to the Cornelius Board of Commissioners on Monday Aug. 15, that will spotlight these safety issues.
Giselle M. Massi
I think you have to look at the BIG picture and ask yourself why is it that people are people being forced to seek alternate routes. Are you going to put speed bumps in every single neighborhood because we have leaders that can’t see the forest for the trees?