Next week on Wednesday, June 12, DOT will hold a hearing to explain where they are in placing what they call a mobility hub, what I call a station, in the footprint (?) of the original Seaboard Airline freight station in Wake Forest.
It was a great boost to the local economy — getting and sending commodities like baled cotton. The town even had an official cotton weigher. I hope some history buff will be able to find how long that position lasted and what are the names of some.
But that is not the current concern; my concern is the 67 parking spaces in and around the current town-owned parking lot with two handicapped spaces. I use one almost every week on a Friday or Thursday or even Saturday.
What I have observed over more than a decade is just how much the patrons of the next door and nearby small business owners rely on having such a handy parking lot. The cars and trucks come and go constantly for as long as the businesses are open.
If they put a new Amtrak station in the parking lot, where will the customers go?
Don’t tell me about the new parking deck down on Brooks next to the old Suntrust building. That is three blocks — maybe four — away from my appointment and up a hill. I and many like me need one almost right next door.
So I’ll be at that hearing or meeting next Wednesday. Hope some of you will be there too.
Next is the new tax on impervious surfaces in town, part of the new floodwater department. I concur with their facts and the methods they are using to help control floodwater in town. It is urgent considering the flooding we have seen in California. Even as we dread the next drought — it is going to happen — we must prepare for extreme flooding from hurricanes or even thunderstorms.
As I understand the tax, it will be based on a drone survey of every lot in town — house, office building, factory — and will measure the impervious surfaces and lots to determine the percentage of impervious to pervious. Based on that percentage, owners will be assessed one of a three-tier set of fees.
If you live in a subdivision, you and your neighbors will be assessed the same amount as your houses are either identical or similar. However, many of us have larger lots or quirky lots along with dirt covers that are not always impervious. Like our brick patio where the bricks do not touch for the most part and the rain never stands in puddles. Or a slab rock walkway. Or a roofless deck with space between the floorboards.
When the survey ends and the assessments start, please do not fear to ask questions and get answers about how much you are charged.
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One Response
It is both a nieve nod to the long-gone past and a boondoggle to try to put an Amtrac depot where the original depot was in WF. Parking is at a premium already in the downtown. A much better place to place the new depot would be off of Rogers Rd on Grandmark St, where we would lose baseball fields, at most. Plenty of land, plenty of inexpensive parking. It is nuts to try to put it back where it was when the town had a population of less than 5,000. We are at 65,000! The little town of WF is long gone. Our collective thinking needs to evolve, ad well…