Plan for new route hits roadblock

COKER | The county's plans for a new road linking U.S. Highway 82 to a school planned for the Romulus community has hit a state-sized obstacle.

About 20 percent of the proposed 5.4-mile route winds through some of the 6,000 acres of Tuscaloosa County land owned by the Alabama Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation.

The Tuscaloosa County school system's southwest school, where the planned road would lead, is currently under construction on land owned by the mental health agency. But state officials have indicated they won't be as willing to part with the land for the sake of the road, county officials said.

John Ziegler, spokesman for the Department of Mental Health, on Wednesday declined to specify the state agency's position on the proposed road.

'We have been generally aware of the county's inclination [to build the road] for several months,' Ziegler said. 'However, our first opportunity to meet with county representatives will be June 3. Soon after that meeting we will be happy to discuss any issues surrounding the matter.'

About half of the 19 or so owners of property through which the proposed $5.6 million road will go have also indicated that they do not intend to sell their land. On May 7, the County Commission voted 3-1 to seize the land from those land owners through eminent domain.

But the county cannot use eminent domain powers to take land from another government entity. If the Department of Mental Health refuse to sell, the road either would have to be redesigned and rerouted — negating much, if not all, of the $826,000 already spent on design, engineering and property appraisals — or abandoned altogether.

'The mental health department owns a lot of property in the area where the road is going and they have indicated they do not want the road to go through their property,' said Barry Mullins, a former county attorney hired by the commission to handle property acquisition for the proposed road. 'The decision by [the department of mental health] will only affect the route.

'If it does have to be moved, then we'll sort of go back to the drawing board and see if the commission wants to put the road in another location.'

County Commissioner Reginald Murray and other county representatives arranged the June 3 meeting with administrators and representatives of the mental health agency. Murray, who supports the road planned for his district, believes a compromise can be reached that will allow the road construction to proceed as planned.

'I am very optimistic that we are going to get the right-of-way that we need with the cooperation of [the mental health department],' Murray said. 'Some people may be looking to create a fight on this issue to kill the road project, but I am very optimistic that after we meet with them on June 3 we will get the agreement that we need [in order] to move forward.'

The road, dubbed the new County Road 2, is planned to run nearly parallel to Romulus Road, the current County Road 2. It would connect on the north end to the intersection of U.S. Highway 82 and Upper Columbus Road, and on the south end with Romulus Road at the $24.5 million school set to open in 2009.

Murray has said the road is needed to enhance safety for the students who will be traveling to the new high school. He did not have safety data for Romulus Road.

Residents in the area have complained that the two-lane road's curvy hills pose a hazard, but Commissioner Bobby Miller and Commission Chairman Hardy McCollum believe that investing dollars to improve the current County Road 2 will achieve the same goal. Neither Miller nor McCollum had safety data on the road.

According to data compiled in 2005 and 2006 by the West Alabama Regional Commission, if the road had existed in 2000, about 1,500 vehicles a day would have traveled it between U.S. 82 and the school site. The same models show that an estimated 3,446 vehicles a day will use the road by 2030.

As a comparison, between 3,500 and 4,000 vehicles cross the Woolsey-Finnell Bridge in Tuscaloosa between 7 and 8 a.m. each weekday.

The Alabama State Troopers office said one person has been killed each year along the current County Road 2 in 2005, 2006 and 2007. However, a spokeswoman for the state law enforcement agency said the totals were not comprehensive. The Alabama Department of Transportation and Tuscaloosa County Engineering Department denied requests for comprehensive accident data on County Road 2, citing federal law.

It's not the best of a situation,' said Miller, who cast the sole dissenting vote during the commission's decision to seize land for the road. 'But why are we going to spend millions of dollars on a county road that won't make its potential for a number of years? If people would drive on any road within what the speed limit is set for it to be, you wouldn't have any problems.'

Murray, however, said the road is necessary for the safety of both current residents and future students.

'It's been well documented that there is a need for the road for safety concerns,' he said. 'The goal is not to wait until the school has opened up and then have to deal with the same things

'We're being proactive here while the school is being built. Gaining access to the school — that's what we're moving toward.'

Reach Jason Morton at jason.morton@tuscaloosanews.com or 205-722-0200.