While carefully driving down the center of the lane this morning on Bells Ferry Road (a challenge for a seventy year old) , it occurred to me that it really does need improvement.
I don't mean four-laning, although that would be nice. But just the road as it is today. The county is planning to replace the bridge over Little River. That is good. It is slightly less than twice the width of my car. But I don't drive over it all THAT much. I do, however, use Bells Ferry a lot north of the bridge. While the bridge is narrow, so are all the lanes on Bells Ferry.
But that's not the big problem. The shoulders are. Or aren't, actually. There are no shoulders. Oh yeah, two years ago or so the county came through with huge traffic-stopping hullabaloo adding asphalt to the side of the road in places. Mostly corners. And across from the fire/police station. But what is now a shoulder ranges from three to six INCHES of pavement past the white edge line. Wow! Bicycles can really ride on that. And cars can really pull over on that in case of trouble (like Johnny hitting Susie again).
We've had a number of accidents where cars failed to make the turns, including one directly across from the fire station (weren't THEY lucky). Can't say for sure, but I bet partial cause may be dropping a wheel off the edge of the (three inch) shoulder and overcorrecting. There's no room for error.
So I might posit (that means suggest or propose to those of you who, ....oh never mind) that it would be a more useful way to spend our money to make the major part of the road safer before making a 100 foot long narrow bridge safer. How many accidents have we had on the bridge?
