{"id":649,"date":"2008-11-08T11:01:36","date_gmt":"2008-11-08T16:01:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/2008\/11\/play-socr-like-florida-save-our-canopy-road.html"},"modified":"2008-11-08T11:01:36","modified_gmt":"2008-11-08T16:01:36","slug":"play-socr-like-florida-save-our-canopy-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/2008\/11\/play-socr-like-florida-save-our-canopy-road.html","title":{"rendered":"Play SOCR Like Florida: Save Our Canopy Road"},"content":{"rendered":"Yesterday some of us finally got to talk to one of the paving proponents inside the county government to try to persuade him to Save Our Canopy Road<\/a> In response we hear Safety! Professional engineer’s opinion! AASHTO standards! Highest and best use!\n

\nWhy the county should determine highest and best use is different from what 60% of the\nhouseholds on the road have said in a petition is mysterious to me; more on that below.\n

\nThey claim they have to have a 60 foot right of way, that they can’t have trees close to the roadbed, they have to have wide sloping ditches, paving just like Hambrick Road, and a 45 MPH speed limit.\n

\n\n<\/a>Yet just across the state line, Leon County, Florida advertises their canopy roads\nas tourist attractions, and both dirt and paved they have trees\njust as close to the roadbed as our canopy does now. Pictured on the right is\nOld Bainbridge Road<\/a>, Leon Co., Fla. Does it remind you of anything?<\/a>\n

\nTallahassee is well known for its canopy roads. Valued by citizens, the roads offer a peaceful alternative to the typical city view of asphalt, cement, signs and visual clutter.\n<\/blockquote>\nThey have canopy road regulations in the county code,\nplus a tree inventory, a management schedule, an interactive tour, and\na printable 11 page brochure.<\/a>\n

\n\"Old<\/a>Some of their canopy roads are dirt, such as\nold Magnolia Road (middle of page 6)<\/a>:\n

\n“…one of our most scenic dirt roads. Because of slow driving along\nMagnolia Road, this detour will add about 40 minutes. Magnolia Road\ncan be slick in rainy weather.”\n

\n“Historic Magnolia Road is one of the most Picturesque in Leon County.\n…Remember to wave at those you pass — it’s southern tradition on\ndirt roads.”\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nOthers were paved carefully to protect the canopy:<\/a>\n

\n“Drive slowly and enjoy the majesty of this beautiful road with its lush\nvegetation. This first portion of Miccosukee Road was paved in the 1980s.\nCare was taken to preserve the rural character of the road; it is narrow\nand weaves to protect the canopy.”\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nLeon County is far from alone in Florida in having canopy roads.\n

\nSarasota County has\n\n61 canopy roads, and a “Canopy Road Ordinance (Art. IV, \u00a798-92)”<\/a>.\n

\nHere are \npictures of canopy roads all over Florida.<\/a>\nSome are dirt, some are paved. Most have trees just as close to the\nroadbed as on Quarterman Road.\n

\nAnd Florida is far from alone. Here’s one\n\nnear Buffalo, NY<\/a>.\n

\nHere’s a writeup by the town of Mount Pleasant on\nMathis Ferry Road, Mount Pleasant, SC<\/a>,\nciting a state scenic roads program. Georgia has one of those, too.\n

\nWhat about Savannah? Surely everyone has driven along\n\nVictory Drive<\/a>.\n

\nOr \nUS 17 near Eulonia in McIntosh Co. on the way to Darien<\/a>.\n

\nIf all that is not enough to address the safety issue,\nhere’s a canopy road that GDOT admits is 20% safer than other roads of its class:\nForest Hill Road, Bibb County, Georgia<\/a>.\n

\nAASHTO standards are guidelines, not requirements. Obviously other places\nhave managed not only to keep canopy roads with safety, they have\nturned them into tourist assets.\nThat seems like a higher and better use than tearing them down.\n

\n\"Quarterman<\/a>\nPreviously we were also told by the county\nthat Quarterman Road had been redesignated by the state as\na collector. I checked Thursday, and GDOT says Quarterman Road, Lowndes County Road 160,\nis functional class 9, rural local road.\nGDOT tells me that this means the state does not tell the county what to do with this road: the state does not\nrequire a 60 foot right of way, and the county could improve\nor pave the road in any number of other ways.\nIf the county took state money, the state might make requirements,\nbut SPLOST VI is not state money: it’s a local tax.\n

\nThere are paved roads in Lowndes County right now that are not 60 feet wide, such as Rusk Road, and if I’m not mistaken Chapelle Road.\n

\nIt’s clear that Quarterman Road does not have to have a 60 foot right of way cleared,\neven if it is paved.\n

\nLowndes County government proponents of paving have not responded\nto requests for other options. We asked when they attended a neighborhood\nmeeting on June 5. I asked in a letter of August 7. Others called and asked.\nNobody ever responded. The way we discovered the county was moving ahead\nwith paving was when I saw a truck creeping along and asked what they\nwere doing:\n

\nLooking to see what it will take to tear down all the trees along the right of way!\nIt’s going up for bids Monday!\n<\/blockquote>\nSince then the county has put the road out for bids and they\nselected the low bid Monday Nov 3rd.\nUnless the commission stops it Tuesday Nov 11th, clearing starts Wednesday Nov 12th.\n

\nWe finally got a meeting with our county commissioner Friday Nov 7th (yesterday).\n

\nHow does Leon County do it?\nThey treat it as a community planning project.\nThey have a canopy roads committee with four members from the county\nand four members from the city that recommends roads to designate as\ncanopy roads.\nThey have workshops on<\/a>:\n

\n“how to manage, protect and plan for the future\nof the canopy roads and canopy corridors in Tallahassee, Leon County.”\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nWe can only assume that Lowndes County is unaware of these many examples of canopy roads in other counties.\nI’m sure there are people on Quarterman Road who would be happy to find out\nmore about how other counties do it.\n

\nThe first thing to be done is to stop the clearing of Quarterman Road,\nand we ask the county commission to stop that Tuesday.\n

\nWe also ask the county to establish a citizens’ committee to\nevaluate canopy roads in the county and how to preserve them.\nHow many county roads are there in the county?\nHow are they being protected?\nWhat guidelines can we develop to preserve them?\nHow do other counties maintain their canopies with safety for residents?\n

\nThis is a planning and zoning issue, not just an engineering issue.\nIt is also a citizens’ issue, not just a county government issue.\n

\nThe Lowndes County Commission meeting of Tuesday 11 November is public.\nThe county government likes citizen participation.\nHelp us preserve the rural character of our canopy road, and of Lowndes County.\nY’all come!<\/a>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Yesterday some of us finally got to talk to one of the paving proponents inside the county government to try to persuade him to Save Our Canopy Road In response we hear Safety! Professional engineer’s opinion! AASHTO standards! Highest and best use! Why the county should determine highest and best use is different from what […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[913,1736,12],"tags":[2153,2168,1923,1108,2164,2166,1098,2167,2030,3,2156,2,2157,2165,2159,2161,325,2158,917,2160,981,2162,2155,2163],"class_list":["post-649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-canopy-road","category-lowndes-county-commission-georgia","category-politics","tag-aashto","tag-bibb-county","tag-buffalo","tag-canopy-road-2","tag-darien","tag-eulonia","tag-florida","tag-forest-hill-road","tag-gdot","tag-georgia","tag-leon-county","tag-lowndes-county","tag-magnolia-road","tag-mcintosh-county","tag-miccosukee-road","tag-mount-pleasant","tag-new-york","tag-old-bainbridge-road","tag-quarterman-road","tag-sarasota","tag-savannah","tag-south-carolina","tag-tallahassee","tag-victory-drive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Gj0O-at","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}