Update from the Construction Zones

I was out of town last week and wasn't able to attend the meeting Tuesday morning at Morningside Elementary School on the Safe Routes to School (SRTS) construction. Given the absence of news on the neighborhood email lists subsequently about what was discussed there, I don't know how many people were able to attend. In the meantime, East Morningside is still torn up with and the right turn bypass lane to North Morningside is closed. It doesn't seem that there has been much progress made on construction there. Perhaps the absence of news and the absence of progress means there's been no decision made. If they are still trying to figure out how to get drivers to slow down, I can understand the lack of progress.

In the meantime, I came across this blog post from the Atlanta Public Schools from last month, listing the goals of the SRTS project in Morningside. I had to laugh when I saw the first one was "Reducing traffic congestion around the school by 10% every year."

Although the work at the East Morningside/Rock Springs/North Pelham intersection seems to have come to an indefinite halt, the work seems close to done at the North Morningside/North Highland intersection. There still is an orange barrel indicating the obliterated right turn late from North Morningside to North Highland southbound; some better markings, with reflective paint on the new concrete that now blocks the lane, would help. The crosswalks are now marked and aligned with the new islands in the intersection.





At Cumberland and North Morningside, where the whole things started, the big pile of sand has been replaced with a larger pile of dirt, suggesting that they are filling in the new space that they created there. The small traffic island that used to be there is long gone. Instead there's a much larger area that is connected to the block between Sherwood and North Morningside on the northwest corner of the intersection. That work seems to be going slowly, too, allowing ample time for speculation. What are they going to put there, after all the dirt goes in? We've often discussed this, when we walk by on our regular walks with the dog. I've suggested that it might be a good location for the new sixth grade annex but I don't know that that idea has gotten any traction yet.



Of course, if they did that, they probably wouldn't meet that goal for a 10% reduction in traffic.