TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — People living in Woodville are pushing back against plans to put a roundabout in the neighborhood.
Earlier this week, the community presented another plan, one that doesn't involve a roundabout to the Capital Region Transportation Planning Agency.
CRTPA Vice Chair and Tallahassee Commissioner Jeremy Matlow is siding with the people in Woodville who want to keep a roundabout and all of the traffic that it'll bring away from the community.
"The primary concern is that we're going to lose our accessibility to the adjoining neighborhoods," said Tyrone Scorsone.
The CRTPA was created to ease traffic for Tallahassee as well as the neighboring counties. But one of its many plans, the Woodville Highway Project, isn't fairing well with many people.
"The second concern is that the roundabout itself is going to cause our trips to be much longer for local trips in the immediate areas as opposed to the current roadway configuration," said Scrosone.
It would make Crawfordville Highway and Woodville Highway both one way. Matlow is siding with the people in Woodville.
"We're seeing the difference between moving cars everyday and the people who are saying we live in this community and we don't like the direction this is going," said Matlow.
So neighbors came up with the People's Choice Plan.
"That alternative proposal primarily keeps some of the capacity expansion in place. So Woodville Highway is planned to go from 2 to 4 lanes," said Scorsone.
"The Department of Transportation analyzed that and brought back to show that while it did show some improvement, it didn't have as much as the original proposal," said Matlow.
Matlow feels there are roads suffering from congestion more than the two in question.
"The road that we're talking about won't be at capacity until 2035. But we have other state roads like Orange Avenue that are at capacity right now," said Matlow.
Woodville neighbors say they're all happy that the CRTPA is at least listening.
The CRTPA wants the neighbors to meet with the Department of Transportation to find a happy medium. No meeting date has been scheduled yet.
The next CRTPA meeting is in January.
