The Salisbury City Council has wisely refused to endorse Mr. Ireton’s attempt to please the Board of Education, which wants the City to immediately upgrade and signalize the intersection on South Division Street at Bateman Street (and nearby Onley Road) before the new high school opens later this year. As proposed the redesigned intersection would allow only right turns onto and from Batemen Street, and obviously throw traffic wanting to proceed north (left) onto South Division Street to bypass that intersection and use the one to the north, thereby creating a congestion problem there, or to use Salisbury Boulevard, then College Avenue, compounding their congested condition. And it would be impossible to turn onto Bateman Street when approaching from the south on South Division Street, so that congestion would be further increased on surrounding streets.
But the biggest absurdity is that the cost of the work would be almost a half million dollars, and Bateman Street and Onley Road would not become directly aligned, so the intersection itself would remain a nightmare. Salisbury University seems to be unwilling to allow Bateman Street to be relocated in part onto the adjacent land because it would mean losing a softball field.
Then there’s the question about the funds to do even the work that Mr. Ireton has proposed. It seems that the City wants future development to pay all of the cost even though the intersection is already a traffic problem because of the existing traffic, both vehicles and pedestrian. Not only is development dead, but the amounts being demanded are likely to cause that to continue for some years. As things now stand, there is not enough money available to complete the work that Ireton has proposed, much less an appropriate upgrade of the intersection that will not create more traffic problems.
DelMarVa's Premier Source for News, Opinion, Analysis, and Human Interest Contact Publisher Joe Albero at alberobutzo@wmconnect.com or 410-430-5349
Since when is this a Salisbury intersection. The sheriff and state handle all of the accidents on south division and onley and south division and bateman. All of bateman street is in the city and the first 50 yards of onley off of south division is in the city. Everything else is in the county. Looks like some police departmen (who knows which one) will be asking for more cops to handle all of the car and pedestrian accidents there.
ReplyDeleteTake the empty lot on Onley Rd and angle Onley to intersect with Bateman. Then you would nullify the illegal parking, the marked yellow curb, from hindering the turning onto Onley plus you would be able to install a light since the two would intersect. In the process eliminate parking on Onley Rd since there is a parking lot for the OLD ZOO complex and the homes have driveways they do not use.
ReplyDeleteWhy can't buses continue to use College? Isn't it possible to create a driveway/bus access to the new school from the existing site?
ReplyDeleteCan you say cluster $%^&!
ReplyDeleteLeft hand turns from a busy street where there is not a designated left hand turn lane are EXTREMELY dangerous! Something should be done at this intersection before the traffic there becomes worse. I think having parking lots for the college and the new school nearby will qualify it as such.
ReplyDeleteMaking a left hand turn onto Parker Road from Old Ocean City Road heading east is a dance with danger. I live nearby so I speak from experience. When one turns left because the on coming traffic is also turning left to the other side....some knuckle head always GOES AROUND either in the right hand turn lane or on the should and this has meant near missed T-Bone accidents almost everytime the traffic signal light changes.
This same thing will happen at the Bateman street location, just wait and see. Fix it now.
I really can't blame SU for not wanting to lose their softball field. Why should SU suffer because the idiot who designed this roadway didn't align the intersection properly.
ReplyDeletewasn't all that work they just did on college ave in front of Bennett intended to help with the new construction of the school?
ReplyDeleteits already a cluster $#%@! 10:49. they really couldnt make it much worse, just worse in a different way haha
ReplyDeleteJust a little FYI for everybody, ALL of South Division Street from the southern boundary of the old Nolan property to the northeast corner of Onley Road & South Division Street IS IN THE COUNTY! Bateman Street up to about the stop line and Onley Road are in the City. So draw the line in your head, the City limit line runs from the southeast corner of the old Nolan property westward along the Nolan property's southern boundary and directly across South Division Street. From there, the line runs south along the west side of South Division to where the north side of Onley Road would be if it extended straight across South Division Street. It then heads east along the north side of Onley road and turns north just shy of the new duplex college housing. Essentially, that portion of South Division Street, that recently cleared lot on the corner of Onley, Whitey's BBQ and house between Whitey's and the vacant lot are in the County. Now you tell me, who is responsible for improving that intersection? As I see it, it would be logical for the County to be responsible for the Bateman intersection improvements and the City to be responsible for the Onley intersection improvements; HOWEVER, since this issue is caused by the County's indiscretions by routing buses down Onley, I would say that they should be responsible for it all! For the County to demand improvements from the City is a bit obnoxious!
ReplyDeleteIn addition, I posted this on DelmarvaNow earlier this morning:
ok...so answer this for me...if the School traffic is to be redirected down Onley Road, which will need to be further improved itself to handle additional volume, then why did the County spend the money to do all of the extensive improvements to East College Avenue? And since the County wants to purchase new land for Bennett Middle that means that all of those improvements would have been done for nothing! When Bennett High is done and Bennett Middle relocated, there will be hardly any traffic on College Ave! Only Road and its intersection with Bateman Street and South Division Street simply CANNOT handle the volume of traffic that they are proposing and there is not enough right-of-way for the proper improvements to be made to handle that volume-you would need at least an extra 40 feet of right-of-way to properly accomodate traffic. Just imagine, half the traffic you see on College Ave from 7-9am and 2-4pm will be crammed on Only Road. PLUS College student foot traffic!
I say put the traffic where it belongs and where it can be handle, ON COLLEGE AVE! You have 4 lanes and all the proper signalization already existing so why try to reinvent the wheel? If the County/City does decide to go forward with routing traffic down Onley Road, then it would be highly advisable to acquire the Right-of-way to extend Onley Road out to Robins Ave to help alliviate traffic issues on South Division Street.
I can tell you this much, it's going to be a nightmare over there and I'm glad that I don't find myself in that area too often! It's just another case of the BOE going overboard with what they WANT and not thinking about what they NEED!
The county should bite the bullet and continue Onley Road on out to Robins Ave. It would make more sense to carry the traffic on out there and relieve the bus traffic on Division. The county school board did not plan very well in making the new bus entrance on Onley Road the only outlet now is Division Street with a cross walk signal that only 1o% of our educated idiots at S.U. actually know how to use. Talk about a waist of money they could have saved a bundle on that signal alone. Put in the mix the buses from S.U. and you have a real screwed up mess.
ReplyDeleteHey, at least the high school students riding the bus will be able to see all the hung over college students walking to class on Friday morning and see what they have to look forward to.
ReplyDeleteCounty Councilman:I got an idea. Let's build a new school behind the existing one, completely change the bus route, then when it's almost completed, we can discuss any and all traffic problems our new plan created. County Councilwoman: But, shouldn't we discuss that as part of the overall plan? No, we will let the City and University worry about all that. Ok, sounds good, where are we going for lunch?
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me any infrastructure issues should have been included in the design or addition of the school to begin with. Wico BOE dropped the ball if they didn't plan and fund this, so let them pay the full cost of any road modifications.
ReplyDeleteRun a dirt lane to college avenue. Won't cost anyone anything.
ReplyDelete12:43, South Division in itself is not the problem here. The problem is a combination of the relationship of Onley Rd (city), (which used to only handle traffic from a small number of homes) to Bateman St (city). The city seems to allow unchecked growth on roads that were never designed to handle the traffic volumes they create. This is what has happened on Onley Rd. All the development creating the problem, with the exception of the school, is within the city. When the school was in the planning stages, there was to be funds in place for the city to correct the problem. I believe the discussion was to realign Onley to enter South Division closer to Batemen to allow for better turning movements and signalization. Funding was supposed to come in part from recent development, the school and the college. The growth causing the problems is from growth of the City. The City should address any problems created. Also, much of this growth is from off campus college housing. For this reason the college should help absorb some of the costs. I am not sure why a roundabout is even a discussion. They are not pedestrian friendly. When the city pushes further and further into the county and develops, it must be prepared to upgrade roads that are confined by limited right of ways. When the city annexes a piece of property from a developer, they have the luxury to require a certain amount of right of way, existing roads in the county, only have a limited amount. Why should the county pay to upgrade roads, because of problems created by the city?
ReplyDeleteTake the money that is going to be used for purchasing the property for a new Middle School and put it in the redesigning of all roads that is needed. To do this, when you demolish Bennett Sr., rebuild Bennett Middle on that site. Then you can use the all new College Ave traffic pattern / intersections that was constructed to handle this major problem. You would also have the Space for a Sports complex for both schools. Common Sense needs to be used with fisical responsibility with Tax dollars.
ReplyDelete