Category Archives: Transportation

T-SPLOST Lunch and Learn today at SGRC

There’s a Lunch and Learn about T-SPLOST at noon today at the

SGRC offices:

327 W. Savannah Ave

Valdosta, GA 31601

Phone: (229)333-5277

FAX: (229)333-5312

Corey Hull says they’re almost full.
However, the presentation is

already on the SGRC web pages.
The City of Valdosta will be videoing the event.
Once Corey knows when it will be televised on the City’s TV channel,
SGRC will advertise that.
There’s also some unknown level of possibility that the videos
may be made available on the web.

-jsq

Airport Authority signs its own contracts



Here’s another local Authority; this one signs its own contracts.

Brittany D. McClure wrote for the VDT 13 October 2011,

Airport Authority discusses improvements to airport,

The Valdosta Airport Authority Board met Wednesday at its office in the
main terminal of the

Valdosta Regional Airport.


Valdosta-Lowndes County Airport Authority

Valdosta Regional Airport is owned and operated by the Valdosta-Lowndes
County Airport Authority. This six-member authority was established
in 1987 and is comprised of three appointees from the city and three
appointees from the county. The full-time staff of the Airport Authority
is comprised of the executive director/airport manager and 5 additional
staff members. The following personnel are members of the Airport
Authority:


Steve Everett – Chairman


Wayne Edwards – Vice Chairman

Nathaniel Haugabrook

Dr. James Sinnott

Anthony Payton

Jane Shelton


Jim Galloway – executive director/airport manager

(229) 333-1833

The board reviewed several airport improvement projects in various stages
of completion — including a remedy to the drainage problem, a proposal
for a new Airport Rescue and Firefighting vehicle and new ARFF station
and the anticipated opening of the new Subway restaurant.

Yet another Authority.
This ones executive director, Jim Galloway,

who was appointed January 1st,
can sign contracts for it:

The proposal for a new ARFF vehicle and station, covered by AIP-28,
is complete and Galloway brought the contracts that were ready for
approval signatures.

“The way this contract is written is not where the mayor can sign it,
it’s where we can actually sign it,” explained Galloway.

Good thing the VDT was there.

-jsq

Corrected T-SPLOST Southern Region Cost Changes

Received this morning. Many thanks to Corey Hull and SGRC for sending this correction. -jsq

John,

I reviewed your question, and that project had an error in it, I am
attaching a new spreadsheet, that is slightly revised. It includes the
TIA funding with inflation so that it matches the other project sheets
that we have handed out at the public meetings

I am sorry about the confusion this has caused.

Sincerely,

Corey

Corey Hull, AICP

MPO Coordinator

Valdosta-Lowndes MPO

This corrects the earlier post.

The corrected spreadsheet he sent is
on the LAKE website
in Excel spreadsheet and HTML versions.

In the HTML version, I have added three columns.


Name is taken from the

Unconstrained Project Listing.
Difference and Diff% were computed from
the Original total Cost Estimate and the Updated Total Cost Estimate.

The project descriptions may be found in the
unconstrained and constrained project lists.
More later.

-jsq

T-SPLOST Southern Region Cost Changes

Update 6:30 PM 26 September 2011: Please see the corrected version received from Corey Hull today. -jsq

Received yesterday from Corey Hull, with this cover sheet message,
responding to my request in the T-SPLOST public meeting Monday.

John,

In the attached spreadsheet you will find the each project associated
with four columns: the original estimate, the updated estimate, the TIA
funding (any difference from the TIA and updated cost estimate is a
secondary funding source i.e. federal, state, or local), and whether
that project is currently included in the constrained list.

GDOT provided the updated costs estimates (based on current GDOT bids)
and in some cases those estimates were further revised by GDOT and the
local governments where appropriate. All project scopes remained the
same with the exception of RC11-000049 and RC11-000042 (highlighted in
yellow), these project termini were changed significantly.

I hope this answers your questions, let me know if you have any more.

Corey

Corey Hull, AICP

MPO Coordinator

Valdosta-Lowndes MPO

327 W. Savannah Ave.

Valdosta, GA 31601

Visit our Facebook Site!

229.333.5277

229.300.0922 (c)

229.333.5312 (f)

chull@sgrc.us


www.sgrc.us/transportation

The spreadsheet he sent is
on the LAKE website
in Excel spreadsheet and HTML versions.
If you want to know what the projects are, you need to look at the
unconstrained and constrained project lists.
More later.

-jsq

T-SPLOST public meeting in Valdosta Monday morning 19 September 2011

The next

T-SPLOST public meeting is tomorrow morning:

Monday, September 19, 2011; 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.; at the Valdosta
City Hall Annex; 300 North Lee Street, Valdosta, Georgia; presentation
will begin at 10:30 a.m.

These meetings are intended to gather public input:

After the public meetings the Roundtable will reconvene to review the
public comments and adopt a final Constrained List that will be presented
on the ballot to voters in 2012.

If you can’t go to the meeting, you can send in the

public comment form
or email Corey Hull at the SGRC.

I don’t know what you might want to comment on,
but a couple of things that come to my mind are:

-jsq

Flattery! —John S. Quarterman @ LCC 13 September 2011



The VDT picked up that I referred to Ashley Paulk’s

personal attention of the day before
as flattery.
Sorry, elected officials who can’t even get recognized by the Chairman:
bring a camera next time; then he’ll notice you!

First I pointed out that the Mayor of Hahira was in the room.
The Chairman had recognized the

new Mayor of Valdosta,
his replacement on the Valdosta City Council, and
the

Chair of the Lake Park Chamber of Commerce, but not the Mayor of Hahira.
I didn’t want anyone to think the County Commission
doesn’t care about Hahira!



Then I commended the voting Commissioners for their comments

Continue reading →

Lowndes County: commuter rail hub

Look at all those other railroads converging on Valdosta in



that GFRR project proposal map.
Valdosta is a historical rail hub for passenger traffic to Atlanta,
Savannah, Jacksonville, Orlando, Thomasville, Tallahasssee, and
beyond. All the tracks are still in place and still in use for freight.
With some rolling stock and a few deals with the railroads, Valdosta
and Lowndes County could become again a passenger rail hub with a mass
transit system for local commuting to jobs and for long distance travel.



Add

a bus system and local commuting becomes very practical.
People could take the train to town and catch a bus to work.
Many people could walk or take a bicycle to their work from the
train station.
This could work the other way around, too.
People could live in Valdosta and work in Ray City or Lakeland or
Hahira or Lake Park or Clyattville and not have to drive to get there.
That would save

a lot of wasted time and wasted fuel.

This kind of mass transit would attract the knowledge-based workers
we supposedly want around here.


Including jobs our high school and college graduates could take,
so they wouldn’t have to move elsewhere.

And upgrading the railroads, building stations, building
and refurbishing houses and apartments near the stations, etc.,
would employ a lot of construction workers;
probably as many as road projects and sprawling subdivision projects,
but without the sprawl.

-jsq

Georgia and Florida Railway (GFRR) – Valdosta to Willacoochee Rehabilitation $6.25 million T-SPLOST

Now here’s a T-SPLOST project I like:
upgrading the railroad that runs


from Valdosta to Moody AFB
and on to Ray City and Nashville in Berrien County,
and Willacoochee in Atkinson County.
This proposal is to aid freight, but with this upgrade to the track,
the same track would be even more readily usable for passenger rail.
That same track was used for passenger travel up into the 1950s.
My mother used to catch the train at Barretts (just north of Moody) to go visit her relatives in Pearson (a bit east of Willacoochee).

It’s true the project sheet talks about “potential customers in the region”:

This project will provide for more efficient train operations along
the rail corridor to accommodate the increase rail traffic serving the
existing and potential customers in the region.

However, rail promotes development in existing population
centers and at stations, unlike all along automobile roadways.

This project is also another example of how
the economic area of Moody AFB includes

Continue reading →

$12M to widen US 41 N is more than $7.5M for a bus system

There is no public transit in Lowndes County, except for the
tiny MIDS bus system (I like it, but it’s small).
Meanwhile,
the county proposes to spend more in a new sales tax to widen one road,

$12 million dollars for Old US 41 North,
than

a bus system would cost, $7.5 million.

One short stretch of road vs. a three-line bus system to connect Wiregrass Tech, Five Points, Downtown,
Moody, East Side, South Side, West Side, and the Mall.

Road and bridge proponents usually mutter that a bus system won’t pay back
for years, if ever.
And that’s right: bus systems usually operate at a loss because local
governments subsidize them for the social and economic benefits they bring,

such as these:

This project will provide mobility options for all travelers; improve
access to employment; and help mitigate congestion and maximize the use
of existing infrastructure by promoting high-occupancy travel.

Employment, safety, and less sprawl, all from a bus system.

What road and bridge proponents don’t ever mention is:

Continue reading →

Jack Kingston has a green tongue —Gretchen Quarterman

VDT LTE today. -jsq

Georgia has gained enough population in the past ten years to add
a congressional seat. This means redrawing the Congressional


district lines not only to balance population, but to also add
another representative in Congress. Lowndes County has been split
between the first and second districts, and all spring rumors of
where we might end up were circulating. Eventually we saw a draft
map that had Lowndes completely in the 8th District,






Before

along with
other counties along Interstate 75. That map made some sense south of Macon.
Some communities of interest were preserved (most of the Lowndes-Valdosta
MPO was in the same district) and the hospitality corridor of I-75
was in one district, along with the rural farms that surround it.
Valdosta to Macon is easier to traverse than Valdosta to Savannah,
or Valdosta to Columbus.

But then Congressman Jack Kingston stuck out his green tongue.

Continue reading →