Every day that Bill Wilkes drives his wife to work at the Mental Health Center on Elm Street he worries about fast-moving traffic coming up behind him as he prepares to make a left turn into the facility.
Wilkes says that while the Alabama Department of Transportation was at it during the two-year closure of the bridge and the road to through traffic, officials should have installed a center left-turn lane. He said he sees a danger area at the Mental Health Center and a mobile home park that the center has established for clients next door.
Also, Whitt’s Barbecue has a lot of traffic in and out of the restaurant.
“When they reopened the road a couple of months ago (after bridge replacement and widening) the road is very wide and has a good surface,” said Wilkes. “But now, there is a lot of speeding. You also have heavy industrial traffic on that street and from Elkton Street, north to the bridge, you have a lot of apartment buildings and the Mental Health Center.”
Wilkes said that along with U.S. 72 West, this stretch of Elm Street poses a danger to motorists.
“It is, quite simply, frightening,” said Wilkes, who teaches economics at Athens State University. “I shudder to think how much was spent to widen — it’s a very, very wide road — it’s like a racetrack now, with people trying to get to 31.”
Wilkes said he appreciates the state building a left-turn lane at Elkon and Elm streets, the site of several fatal wrecks.
“They did change our signal system — at least a turn lane where one can get over and see oncoming traffic to their right,” he said.
Wilkes said he had talked to city of Athens Public Works Department Director James Rich, who told him the street is the responsibility of the state.
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