No change for Anderson Street this time either, Council says

Saturday, October 14, 2017
As crews repave Anderson Street on Friday afternoon, one change that won’t be coming to the street is the addition of two-way traffic east of Bloomington Street. Citing a lack of support from most local residents and public safety officials, on Thursday the Greencastle City Council for a second time took no action on a request from residents of Miller-Asbury Apartments to change the traffic pattern.
Banner Graphic/NICK WILSON

Some long overdue repaving is currently in progress along Anderson Street from Bloomington Street to Wood Street in Greencastle.

While new and smooth, that blacktop surface likely will be the only change East Anderson Street residents will witness for the foreseeable future.

Not that some of its residents haven’t been advocating change.

At the September City Council meeting, a petition signed primarily by residents of the Miller Asbury Apartments development in the old Miller School building, requested Anderson Street (which runs one-way east) be converted into a two-way street from Bloomington to Wood Street.

No one from Miller Asbury attended that meeting but a large group of residents from homes along East Anderson Street did in protest over the possibility of a change to two-way traffic.

The Council took no action that night, effectively denying the petition.

Thursday night a contingent of Miller Asbury residents was on hand for the October Council session, this time petitioning for the street to be made two-way between Bloomington and Arlington to facilitate their exit onto Bloomington Street.

Again the Council took no action, effectively denying the petition, but not before some interesting dialogue took place.

Carolyn Nichols represented the Miller Asbury group at the podium, offering a petition with 49 signatures, nine more than the previous month. She suggested the two-way designation would help “take more traffic off of Seminary Street.”

To get to Bloomington Street, Miller Asbury residents must exit their parking lot and go right, turn left on Arlington and left again onto Seminary a block later to get over to Bloomington to go north or south.

In letter from Phyllis Neumann read to the Council by Nichols, she noted the change would make it “much more accessible for elderly residents” and create a “faster way to get to Putnam County Hospital.”

The Miller Asbury contingent noted that residents who live along the north side of Anderson between Bloomington and Arlington have expressed no problem with the two-way change, and that the street could easily accommodate the traffic because there is no parking on the north side there.

Resident Marty Gill, 531 Anderson St., quickly contested those notions.

“All the people from Arlington down to Bloomington are against having it a two-way street,” Gill assured, noting that residents do indeed park on the north side, especially when they have visitors or multiple vehicles.

Gill also noted that Anderson Street residents had meetings with Chuck Heintzelman, the developer of the Miller Asbury project, and “he told us it was never his intention to make it a two-way street. It was never his intention to push for that.”

City Planner Shannon Norman echoed those remarks, adding that such an idea also has had no support from the city’s public safety officials.

Fire Chief John Burgess said making Anderson Street two-way traffic would “make it extremely tight“ to get fire equipment through the traffic in a timely manner.

“We’d have to eliminate parking to do it,” Council President Adam Cohen said. “That to me, with all due respect, becomes a problem.”

Councilman Dave Murray had similar thoughts.

“The overriding thing to me is when public safety people tell me this is not a good thing, it’s tough for me to go down that road, no pun intended.”

Before all discussion faded, one Miller Asbury resident asked if the city could just make the section of Anderson from Bloomington Street to the apartment’s entrance two-way.

That would not be feasible, Mayor Bill Dory explained, noting that a two-way designation would have to continue to at least a cross street, the first of which would be Arlington.

With no action taken on the two-way matter, Mayor Dory summed up the issue.

“No action is necessary,” he said, “because there is no change.”

He then thanked the Miller Asbury residents for coming out to make their case and take part in the process.

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  • Well, well, well one more issue that will come back to haunt the next city council election. These residents in town that have driveways and still have to use our city streets which in a lot of areas are narrow to begin with are extremely selfish and I for one will be bringing this up during the next city council election.

    -- Posted by danny1 on Sat, Oct 14, 2017, at 9:10 AM
  • Good point danny1.

    Now while we are on the subject of narrow streets, let's take a moment and think about the new highly used South Street which is a very narrow street (width?) with two-way traffic and parking on both sides of the street. When traveling one has to weave from side to side to avoid the parked cars and you hope another car is not coming in your lane.

    The Fire Chief made this statement about Anderson street (width?), "making it a two-way street would make it extremely tight for the fire department to get thru the traffic in a timely manner."

    How are these two streets different from each other? Aren't the two streets the same width? Yet, Anderson is one-way traffic and South Street is two-way traffic.

    Greencastle City council, we need some consistency in city streets. City Streets seem a hodge-podge of inconsistent decisions over a number of years with different council members coming up with different ideas and no real thought process to bring it all together.

    -- Posted by Lookout on Sat, Oct 14, 2017, at 12:51 PM
  • why not make Anderson street 2 way traffic and leave the parking just on the north side the way it is now? this would not in my opinion create any new safety issues.

    -- Posted by danny1 on Sat, Oct 14, 2017, at 1:08 PM
  • It's not wide enough to have two way traffic and parking. Plus many Anderson St residents have no driveway or a shared driveway and rely on street parking. If people at Miller Asbury don't like the one way street, they are free to move elsewhere.

    -- Posted by Koios on Sat, Oct 14, 2017, at 2:21 PM
  • Anderson St. was one-way when the developer got approval for the project, and he said there were no plans to try changing that. The residents moved in on a one-way street, and they knew it was that way. Live with it and don't try to make everyone else on the street park somewhere else. The project would not have been approved in the first place if it included changing it to a two-way street.

    -- Posted by Geologist on Sat, Oct 14, 2017, at 6:10 PM
  • Once again it appears Greencastle and Putnam County people are presenting sound alternatives to a problem the Greencastle City Council and Mayor Bill Dory do not want to address.

    Rather, the Greencastle City Council and Mayor Bill Dory think the situation will go away if they ignore it long enough.

    -- Posted by Lookout on Sat, Oct 14, 2017, at 10:24 PM
  • Ervjh: You just made my point about South Street when you stated the following comment about Anderson Street: "It's not wide enough to have two-way traffic and parking".

    -- Posted by Lookout on Sat, Oct 14, 2017, at 10:29 PM
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