Sunday, September 26, 2010

Eastern Bypass Public Hearing

Public Notice
Walk-in Design Public Hearing
Tuscaloosa East Bypass from I-20/I-59 to Jack Warner Parkway


Date: October 26, 2010
Time: 4:00 pm to 7:00 pm
Place: Paul W. Bryant High School Gym
6315 Mary Harmon Bryant Drive
Cottondale, AL 35453

Here's your chance to "talk to the hand" folks. How many public hearings on this project does this make, and what changes has ALDOT made in response? Didn't they shift the M-bend bridges a couple of hundred yards one way or another in response to the public backlash? I honestly can't remember because it's been so long the details have sort of slipped out of the public consciousness. Of course that's part of the strategy. Do a quick little bit of behind the scenes backroom dealing, buy up some property, do some utility line work, hold a "public hearing", ignore the resultant uproar, let things settle down for a while. Repeat as necessary until project gets done...

Regardless, I will be there the full time allotted to the hearing, with lots of questions and opinions on the project. It will be interesting to see if they've assigned half-way accurate costs to this boondoggle, or if they're still trying to snow everyone. Come on out and let ALDOT know how you feel about this project consuming a minimum of 1/4 to 1/3 of ALDOT monies to be spent in Tuscaloosa County in the 2010 - 2014 time frame. Residents of Cottondale may want to know if their houses will be in the perpetual shadow of the dual bridges over Keens Mill Rd, Cottondale Creek or Hwy 11. Here's your chance to find out!

3 comments:

  1. For someone who doesnt want personal attacks being posted about them you sure do attack the developers of this project a lot. The fact is, there is nowhere else that the bypass can feasibly be located. Look at a map. Not a creek map. A county map. It doesn't fit anywhere else. Dont take things so personal. Afterall, God teaches us to be thankful. Be thankful that 95% of your stream will be untouched and don't dwell so much on what you feel are negatives. You aren't saving a stream, you are harming a city.

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  2. I get attacks all the time. When I do I respond in kind.
    I return attacks to people who have intentionally defamed me for the last 20 years. ALDOTs L.Dee Rowe has called me a liar in public while I held documents proving that I was telling the truth.
    They have intentionally used faulty surveys to cloud the route and how expensive it will be to go through here.
    They have refused to even begin to compromise about the location within the corridor. A landowner offered to GIVE them 100 acres of adjacent property to re-rout it back farther from the creek and they refused to talk to him about it. They have never completed a project that wasn't in violation throughout it's lifespan, at least in this watershed since 1993

    Yes, I attack agencies who misuse taxpayers money for pork barrel projects with no regard for the people impacted.
    PEOPLE not just the stream.
    PEOPLE will be displaced that have been here for generations. not just one or two but entire neighborhoods of PEOPLE.

    God also taught me to steward the Earth, not allow it to be used for the convenience of a few wealthy at the cost of so many PEOPLE who are not as affluent and can not vote because we are in the police jurisdiction. We could not vote on the project or against the political powers that condemned out quality if LIFE.

    This is not just an environmental issue, it is social justice.

    They can build it right where it is drawn by law. But also by law, they WILL build it according to all laws, rules, and regulations or it will either not be built or it will keep them in court until we are too old to use it.

    If it is built, It will be far more expensive that you are being told.

    Why should our community be sacrificed to the North River By-pass? While there is more money on the other side of the bridge, there is no one over there with more citizen rights than anywhere else.
    Do it right or don't do it at all.

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  3. Kenny Beck, a couple things. John Wathen didn't pen the "Eastern Bypass Public Hearing" posting above, although I'm glad that he put it on this website. It sort of gets to the heart of the matter for those who have been paying attention.

    So your assertion that he was personally denigrating developers is false.

    Also, this is not a bypass. You know full well that there will NEVER be a continuation of the Northriver Expressway beyond the north side of the River. If you believe otherwise, maybe you can enlighten us as to which neighborhood ALDOT will use eminent domain to buy property for continuation over to Hwy 82.

    Therefore your assertion that blocking this project is somehow "harming the city" also falls flat on its face, since it will only benefit a small minority of Tuscaloosans trying to shave 5 minutes off the trip to Birmingham. At a cost of hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars and environmental degradation.

    Not to mention the damage it will do to less affluent communities in its path like the Holt/Crescent Ridge and Cottondale areas. I know those places don't count for much in your worldview, but they're important to the people who live there. And yet you have the temerity to bring God into your argument...

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