
Southern Shores homeowner Mark Dailey posted the above photograph on Next Door late yesterday afternoon. It depicts cut-thru traffic at the intersection of Sea Oats Trail and Hillcrest Drive, looking north.
As The Beacon reported 5/3/23, the Town Council unanimously voted earlier this month not to take any action on the street to prevent cut-thru traffic. Mayor Elizabeth Morey and her colleagues on the Council decided, based on anecdotal evidence, that the “No Thru Traffic” barricades employed last summer were not effective.
“Mayor Morey,” we wrote 5/3/23, “said she thought the ‘potential for conflict’ between and among drivers and residents over [the use of the barricades] ‘outweighs their efficacy,’ an opinion she based on her personal observations last summer and one that she has consistently expressed since June, when people acted out angrily over the closure of Hickory Trail at East Dogwood Trail.
“Town Councilmen Matt Neal and Mark Batenic agreed with the Mayor, saying that their informal observations last summer led them to believe that too many cut-thru drivers were ignoring the barricades. Town Councilwoman Paula Sherlock expressed her dislike for the ‘eyesore’ that the barricades created.”
The Beacon has been writing about the scourge of cut-thru traffic since we started this blog in April 2018. We have suggested many problem-solving tactics and reported upon those that were employed. We also have reported on many public meetings about how to address the cut-thru traffic, including those held by the citizens’ Exploratory Committee to Address Cut-Thru Traffic, which was sanctioned by the Town Council, and the traffic engineering consultant hired by the Town to evaluate traffic conditions.
(To read about the findings of the exploratory committee and the outside traffic consultant, J.M. Teague Engineering and Planning of Waynesville, N.C., see The Beacon, 3/29/21 and 2/18/21, respectively. The Town paid $7500 for Teague’s study and report.)
As those of you who have been in the trenches for a while know, action by the Town Council comes slowly. None of the suggestions made by the traffic engineer, which were chiefly physical barriers, was even considered for implementation by then-Mayor Tom Bennett, who served from 2013-21, and the Town Council.
Indeed, it took four years and a radical change in Town Council membership before the left-turn prohibition at U.S. Hwy. 158 and South Dogwood Trail, which emerged as a solution from a 2014 townwide traffic workshop–for which the Town hired a professional mediator–was tried on a trial basis, and then opponents mischaracterized the results, to discourage its continued use. (See The Beacon, 6/25, 6/29, and 7/6/18.)
Police Chief David Kole was one of the primary detractors of the turn prohibition. He did not want to commit resources to enforcing it.
For six years Mayor Bennett consistently voted against prohibiting the left turn at South Dogwood Trail or taking any other actions suggested by property owners to reduce traffic. He repeatedly said in public that he considered the summertime traffic “the burden of living here.”
Mr. Bennett cast the sole dissenting vote against holding three “manned” no-left-turn weekends during the summer of 2020, the first of the Covid-19 summers. “Manned” meant having the Southern Shores police monitor the intersection for violations.
Two weeks later, however, the Mayor abruptly reversed course. The unprecedented traffic jam-up of the first two weekends in June, during which the left turn was not prohibited, was “not a healthy situation,” he said. At the Mayor’s initiative, the Council added two “unmanned” no-left-turn weekends in June.
Is that what it is going to take for Mayor Morey and the current Town Council to take further action this summer, including restoring some barricades? An “unhealthy situation”?
The Town of Kitty Hawk, which has jurisdiction over the left-turn lane at the U.S. 158-South Dogwood Trail intersection, refused to cooperate last summer with a left-turn prohibition on weekends, citing “safety concerns,” according to then-Town Manager Andy Stewart. (See The Beacon, 5/13/22.)
Would Kitty Hawk abruptly change course and support its neighbor if the situation became “unhealthy”?
If so, would the Southern Shores police, with assistance from the Kitty Hawk police, commit the necessary resources to enforcement of the ban to make it effective? “Unmanned,” as experience teaches, doesn’t cut it.
The arriving northbound cut-thru traffic yesterday–judging from our observations–was steady on South Dogwood Trail, not backed up, as it can be during peak season. It is only going to get worse when schools close for the summer.
It has been nearly a year since Mayor Morey held a Mayor’s Chat. We think one is well overdue.
Although Next Door has become the go-to forum for residents’ traffic complaints, and we are publishing less frequently, we still welcome your comments here.
(We apologize for the technical difficulties earlier, which resulted in subscribers receiving notice of this blog post twice.)
Ann G. Sjoerdsma, 5/28/23