A bit more on DOT Commissioner Evans Macon visit

Coverage of DOT Commish Gena Evans visit to Macon last night. If you don't care about the I-16/I-75 interchange, but do care about funding splits and new transportation funding proposals, skip down halfway.

A couple of other things:

For years, citizens have had a pretty legitimate complaint about DOT public hearings. You show up, and they tell you how it's going to be. Sure, there is some give and take, but quite often designers will start with a five lane road by your house and, when they cut it to four, tell you that's compromise.

"I've heard 'It's a done deal' more times than I want to count," local activist Susan Martin told Commissioner Evans, in calling for public charettes at the beginning of projects, where citizens would be asked what kinds of roads they want.

Evans didn't fully endorse that idea, but did commit to show up, unannounced, at a coming DOT public hearing to see what goes down.

Two things she was big on: Mass transit/commuter rail and roundabouts. Mass transit was no surprise, though with state budget cuts, and most of the DOT's funding tied up - by law - in roads and bridges, I don't know where the money's going to come from. It will be interesting to see what requirements along those lines are attached to new funding proposals, be they transportation SPLOSTS or toll roads or otherwise.

But the roundabout thing was fairly shocking, given that there are about four of those things in Georgia.

"You're speaking to somebody who's really interested in roundabouts," Evans said.