Winston-Salem uses an unusual approach for improving the safety of its streets that seems to be paying off. The city’s traffic engineers continue to collect data on accident-prone intersections for several years after a fix is made. In most states and localities, traffic engineers merely assume that a change eliminates any problems and do not monitor accident rates to see whether, in fact, changes did help, and if so, by how much.
The Winston-Salem Department of Transportation’s approach is statistical in nature. When there are several crashes at an intersection or citizens complain that an area may be unsafe, traffic engineers examine several years’ worth of data. If a fix is warranted, the agency will continue to collect data for at least three years afterward to see how effective the changes have been.
“It makes a big difference,” Stan Polanis, director of the Winston-Salem DOT, said to the Winston-Salem Journal. Polanis said it is critical that engineers are able to make changes immediately, there is no waiting list for improvements. The city has also no minimum accident threshold for upgrades.
State traffic safety statistics back up Polanis’ claims. Forsyth County, in which Winston-Salem is located, has the state’s fourth-largest population of the state’s 100 counties. Forsyth also ranks fourth in the number of registered vehicles and annual miles driven. It places only 12th, though, in the number of accidents, 25th in the number of accidents with injury, and 88th in fatal accidents.
The program also improves decision-making and fosters public accountability.
“If you don’t have enough information, it’s tougher to make wise choices,” Kevin Lacy, an engineer with the N.C. Department of Transportation, said to the newspaper. “Something may look great, but unless it’s carefully evaluated, you don’t know from a taxpayer’s perspective whether it was worth it. It makes sense to be able to show people what kind of return they are getting on their money.”
Lawn parking banned in Charlotte
A new ordinance bans parking cars on front lawns in Charlotte. The regulation comes after neighborhood groups complained that cars-on- lawns were an eyesore that depressed house prices.
The ordinance prohibits, with certain exceptions, people from parking on the lawn in front of single-family houses, or buildings with two, three, or four units. The rule does not apply where on-street parking is not allowed, or to homes with especially small yards (less than 25 feet wide or with a house less than 20 feet from the street). Parking on front lawns is also allowed up to once a week for special occasions.
The penalty for a violation is a $25 fine and possibly having the offending vehicle towed. The ordinance, which went into effect April 1, does not affect parking in back yards.
“If somebody was looking for a house to buy and they see a lot of this, it would cause them to think the people didn’t care how the neighborhood looks,” Julian Underwood, president of the Shannon Park neighborhood association said to The Charlotte Observer.
Others were less inspired by the new law. “It’s kind of like legislating all the minutiae of your life,” Steve Sweigart, a northwest Charlotte resident, said to the newspaper. “If you want to park a car in your yard… it’s your business.”
Pier fees adrift
Public protests have forced Duke Power and Carolinas wildlife agencies to suspend a new fee to build piers on Catawba River lakes. Revenue from the fees was to have gone to preserve wildlife habitat.
Duke Power manages the lakes made by its hydroelectric dams along the Catawba River in North Carolina and South Carolina. Last year it imposed a $500 permit fee for building new or expanding or repair existing piers. The fee is in addition to a separate $300 application fee.
Opposition to the fee was based in part on a lack of public input. Many residents learned about them only by reading the newspaper.
“We said all along we think the habitat-enhancement program was a great idea,” Randy Humphries of the Lake Wateree Home-owners Association said to The Charlotte Observer. “But we also felt like the home-owners shouldn’t be the only ones paying for it.”
“We felt like it was probably wise to just drop back and take a fresh look at how to fund it,” Cary Chamblee of the S.C. Department of Natural resources said to the newspaper. “If we’re asking the community to pay directly, they should be more directly involved.”
Incentives Don‘t Have to be Paid Back
A jury has ruled that Bristol Compressors Inc. does not have to repay Alleghany County and others $6.9 million in incentives that helped lure the company to Sparta. Bristol Compressors closed its manufacturing plant in 2002, several years before the end of a 10-year incentive deal it had signed with the county and the other groups.
“We thought we had a contract that protected the legal interests of the county,” said Alleghany County Commissioner Patrick Woodie to the Associated Press. “What we found out was that it was an ambiguous contract.”
To help attract the company, the county gave Bristol Compressors a 50-acre parcel and nearly $5 million. The town of Sparta, Skyline Telephone Co. and the Blue Ridge Electric Membership Corp. kicked in an additional $600,000. The Region D Development Corp. contributed at least $200,000. The incentives deal was signed in 1993 and the plant opened in 1995. At one time it was the county’s largest employer.
At the core of recently concluded legal dispute was the amount Bristol Compressors would have to repay. The county contended that by leaving early, the company should have to repay all of the incentive money. The company successfully argued, however, that it only had to repay the amounts it got in years that it didn’t meet the employment goals in the contract.
Lowrey is a Charlotte-based associate editor at Carolina Journal.