DeRenne study under way
The third attempt at solving the myriad issues on and around DeRenne Avenue is well under way, with a group of neighborhood and business leaders at the steering wheel.
A consultant for the city of Savannah is talking to major stakeholders along the traffic-choked east-west corridor and is initiating a telephone survey of people who use the road. The consultant also is commencing a market analysis to see what types of businesses will and will not work on DeRenne.
"I think what they are doing is a lot better because there are no pretenses. They can't go to one neighbor and say one thing and another somewhere else," said Melissa Bates, who represents the Poplar Place/University Place neighborhood on the Project Advisory Committee. "Now you have everybody together at the table, and it will promote more dialogue."
She said the committee brainstormed and put emphasis on land use, priority given to neighborhoods, zoning and blight and improving intersections. But widening - the most controversial aspect proposed in the previous study three years ago - never came up.
The new DeRenne study has just begun, and nothing has been decided. The first big public meeting isn't scheduled until the first part of August.
"From our point of view, to say that it needs to be widened essentially is jumping quite a bit ahead," said Rob Hume of Kimley-Horn Associates, the consultant hired to help the city on the project.
"To jump to the conclusion of widening would put a significant financial and impact burden that really hasn't been calculated against the needs of the neighborhoods," he said.
How the road fits in with surrounding neighborhoods and businesses is the crucial difference in this study compared with previous studies, city officials have said. A land-use study is being developed.
From west to east, DeRenne transitions from a 55 mph interstate terminus to a city road lined by businesses, to a strip of medical facilities on one side and houses on the other and then to Truman Parkway.
So Hume is talking to as many people as possible to define the characteristics of the corridor, but he also is doing detailed traffic analysis.
The current work is the first of five phases. More than $308,000 has been approved for phase I, which should be competed early next year.
The second through fifth phases will develop, refine and design alternatives.