LEXINGTON AVENUE QUESTIONS AGAIN SURFACE FOR THE COUNCIL

Residents who have long complained about the Lexington Avenue arterial project Monday contended that city officials continue to change plans for the route.

Priscilla Kirby, who lives on the corner of Sherwood and Lexington, said residents of the segment of Lexington between Cape Rock Drive and Perryville Road were told by city officials in 1990 that their's would be the last segment of the street built. The city plans to widen an existing section of Lexington to tie in with new sections of the route.

Kirby said the city now is negotiating with property owners along the route and have indicated the project will be done ahead of schedule.

"They're saying it's going to be done this year two years ahead of schedule," she said. "We were supposed to be last, and now it seems we're not going to be last."

Kirby said other plans for the segment, such as the street's grade and the width of intersections, also have been changed since May 1990, when the council approved the route's final design.

"We've been told and told and told that this project has been planned for 20 years, but every time we come, it's changed," she said. "Who can we believe?"

In 1990, about 200 people attended a city council meeting to support and criticize an earlier council "flip-flop" on the width of the Cape Rock Drive to Perryville segment.

At the meeting after more than two hours of deliberation the council voted to build a 44-foot-wide street from Kingshighway to Perryville Road and from Cape Rock Drive east to Highway 177, with a 36-foot-wide section between.

Assistant City Manager Al Stoverink said Monday that the plan hasn't been altered significantly since the meeting nearly two years ago.

"The changes that have been made are in response to the safety concerns of the residents," he said, referring to a grade reduction for a hill in the segment between Cape Rock and Perryville.

Stoverink said the timetable might be six months to a year ahead of schedule, but that could change if right-of-way acquisition is delayed.

"The timetable for the whole project has always been five years," he said. "I had said this part probably would be done last.

"It has been three years since that point, and even if right of way is purchased, it would realistically be next year before that project would be done."

The council took no action on the matter Monday. Lexington already is completed between Route W east to Carolina Lane and work is being done on the segments west to Kingshighway and east to Perryville Road.

Stoverink said the city plans to proceed with the final sections of the street as rights of way are acquired. "That could very well be the last segment done, but not necessarily," he said of the Perryville to Cape Rock section.

He said most changes in the plan are attributable to complications common with a project of Lexington's size. Other changes were made at the request of Kirby and other residents, Stoverink said.

"We're doing with that section exactly what the residents wanted if there was going to be a project," he said.

Councilman Al Spradling III asked Kirby what difference the schedule changes made if the project is going to be done regardless.

Kirby responded: "There are families with very small children and it could make a big difference where an older child wouldn't be as much of a safety concern."

But Councilman David Limbaugh said if the Cape Rock to Perryville section was constructed last, it would force traffic from two sections of 44-foot-wide street into a section of 30-foot-wide street.

"The safety argument you guys kept making was that if we expanded both sides of Lexington you wouldn't want to be the last segment done because it would be an unsafe bottleneck and (because of) the crest of the hill," he said.