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Morrison Plantation will pay for traffic study at deadly intersection

Jaime Gatton | Mooresville Tribune | Sept. 22, 2006

Morrison Plantation developers say they will pay for a study to determine if stop lights are needed at a deadly intersection in their development.

A “traffic signal warrant analysis is … a first step toward erecting a traffic signal at an intersection,” the developers said in press released issued Thursday afternoon.

The statement came two days after Town Manager Jamie Justice sent a firm letter to the developers after they failed to show up at a meeting they had scheduled with town officials.

Meanwhile, town employees this week delivered barricades and orange cones to the entrance of Morrison Plantation Parkway from Brawley School Road, in anticipation of a possible blockage of the road by frustrated town leaders.

Justice said Thursday that the town is exploring all its options, including barricading one or both ends of Morrison Plantation Parkway.

The parkway is a popular cut-through from Brawley School Road to N.C. 150. Some town officials believe that barricading at least one end of the parkway would decrease the amount of traffic on the road, thereby decreasing the number of cars driving through the intersection of the parkway and Plantation Ridge Drive, where a pedestrian was stuck and killed by a car on Sept. 5.

Since the fatality, the town and Morrison Plantation developers have publicly debated who is responsible for the development’s roads and a needed traffic signal at the problem intersection.

The town says that Morrison Plantation developer Ed Kale of Carolina Income Management has not completed needed improvements in his development, and until that happens, the town cannot take over public maintenance of the internal streets. The streets are therefore private and the sole responsibility of the developer, the town contends.

Kale and the other Morrison Plantation developers, on the other hand, say the town approved the current design of the intersection.

The sparring resulted in the Morrison Plantation developers sending a letter to the Town of Mooresville last week, offering to work together on a solution for the intersection of Morrison Plantation Parkway and Plantation Ridge Drive.

Kale’s attorney wrote an e-mail to Town Attorney Steve Gambill, scheduling a meeting for Tuesday at 11:30 a.m. in Town Hall.

Some town officials – including Commissioner Chris Carney, whose district includes Morrison Plantation – agreed to meet with Kale and his attorney. But at least one town commissioner, Frank Rader, chose not to attend because the meeting “is a setup to get (the Town of Mooresville) to buy in on Morrison’s responsibility,” Rader wrote in a Sept. 14 e-mail to Gambill and other town leaders.

In response to requests from the Tribune this week, Rader provided his e-mails regarding the town’s scheduled meeting with the Morrison Plantation developers.

“There is nothing that can come of this meeting,” Rader said in one e-mail. “Morrison will dance and bow but no shovels will hit dirt.”

He recalled attending a January meeting with the same group of developers who said “the same stuff,” and “there has been no action,” Rader stated.

“There needs to be no meeting to discuss the obvious – they can’t or will not do what is their responsibility.”

As for the scheduled meeting, “I can be there but will not,” Rader wrote. “The meeting I’ll attend will be with gloves and shovels to start fixing things.”

Neither Kale nor his attorney – to whom Gambill forwarded a copy of Rader’s e-mail this week – showed up at the Tuesday meeting, after all.

Justice’s letter that afternoon to the developers of Carolina Income Management Group (CIMG) stated that “evidently, the reason for CIMG not meeting with us is that CIMG did not have a proposal to make to the Town of Mooresville.”

He told the developers to “let me know when you have a proposal so that we can meet.

“Your proposal,” Justice continued, “should include specific improvements and a timetable for making those improvements. And certainly your proposal should include, as stated in your September 12, 2006 letter, ‘the appropriate traffic control device for this intersection.’ ”

Thursday, two days after Justice sent his letter, the developers issued their statement that they have hired Kimley-Horn and Associates – the same firm who conducted the developers’ original traffic study – to conduct the “traffic signal warrant analysis of the intersection” of Morrison Plantation Parkway and Plantation Ridge Drive.

“We have had several conversations with the town about traffic control on Morrison Plantation Parkway, and they told us this week that nothing can happen until this analysis is completed,” said Jimmy Flowers, a Morrison Plantation developer. “We will turn over the results of the study to the town to help them in their decision-making.”

The developers will pay the estimated $8,000-$11,000 study cost, according to the press release.

While the developers said they don’t know how long the analysis will take, it will include eight factors—including eight-hour, four-hour and peak-hour vehicular volume, pedestrian volume, school crossing, coordinated signal system, crash experience and roadway network.

“The Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices is very specific about the standards that have to be met before a traffic signal can be put up,” Flowers said. “Once we have the results of the analysis, the town’s options will be clearer.”

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