Mr. Doss:
Customer service is very important to us and we want to be able to provide you with all the information necessary to respond to your questions. We can provide you with some information on a couple of items and those are summarized below, but we think it would be more productive to meet with you and discuss other things in more detail. This will also give us the opportunity to pull together the appropriate staff, who are the subject matter experts and can more adequately provide you information and work through your concerns.
In this email, I can address the funding concern you raised over the neighborhood's share of the cost for the speed humps. The developer contributor funds occurred approximately 10 years ago. At this time, our traffic calming program was fairly new and detailed records going back that far are limited. We have documentation on the cost of speed humps and the decorative treatment cost for each year, along with the location where speed humps were installed. We know that a decorative treatment has always been costly since it is hand stamped and painted. Even though the cost varies from year to year depending on the contract amount, it has remained fairly consistent and averages about $750 per decorative treatment to each speed hump. In light of this information, the CDOT is able to offer the following:
Madison Park neighborhood funds were used to purchase the decorative adders on all 9 humps. The break down is:
1999 7 decorative adders on Seneca @ $800/each
2002 2 decorative adders on Wedgewood @ $700/each
Total Spent: $7000
Remaining amount available to neighborhood: $13,000.
We are willing to compromised on the 2002 decorative treatment since there is no record of when the feature was installed. Neighborhood minutes you provided indicate $750 total. We expect that $750 is a per decorative treatment cost, otherwise the decorative treatment would have been $375, and historical contracts indicate the cost has never been that low. We suspect the CDOT provided the neighborhood a cost estimate of $750 per decorative treatment, and someone misunderstood it to be the total cost. Let me know if the neighborhood can agree to this arrangement. If so, the neighborhood will have available the additional $13,000 to be applied to other transportation enhancements we provide.
As for the new signal you noticed on Beatties Ford Rd, the CDOT received experimental approval from Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) in January 2007 to install, monitor and report on a new Pedestrian Beacon Signal. Locations were selected based on safety (at least 1 pedestrian crash was documented in the vicinity), pedestrian activity, land uses and roadway characteristics. The CDOT selected three locations to test with a study period through January 2012. At which time, the CDOT will summarize our findings and present a report to FHWA.
Please let us know if you have a preference on date and time for a meeting to discuss your other concerns not specifically addressed in this email. I will be out of the office for the next few days so, you may contact Doreen Szymanski (704-336-7527) to set up a meeting.
Liz Babson, P.E.
Deputy Director
Charlotte Department of Transportation
600 East 4th Street
Charlotte, NC 28202
704-336-3916 (office)
704-336-4400 (fax)
ebabson@charlottenc.gov
www.charmeck.org/Departments/Transportation/Home.htm
The above letter came in response to my findings in our Madison Park Minutes that did not matching up with the CDOT repsonse posted 4/17/09-- CDOT Feedback on Tyvola where they stated we had a balance of zero dollars.
