Conclusions

The project should be canceled immediately because it would do irreparable harm to the community, without significant benefit. Specifically, it would:

 

• Create hazardous situations by funneling high-speed cut-through traffic through school crossing intersections. The Doherty/Heritage Extension will provide a cut-through bypassing a congested intersection, just as Trend Road does currently. Police traffic counts found an astounding amount of cut-through Traffic on Trend Road, so we have every reason to expect similarly high amounts of cut-through traffic on the Doherty/Heritage Extension.  School crossing guards already complain that they are almost hit every day.

• Exacerbate the dangerous congestion on Henry that already blocks access to several side streets.

• Pave over a large swath of green space that now absorbs stormwater, which will increase the risk of flooding in the local area and possibly further downstream on the canal system. The road’s drainage system will be sized to deal with a nominal rainfall event, but there are going to be hurricanes and tropical storms that will dump much more rain than the nominal event, so homes will be flooded that would not be flooded without the road in place.  There have been more Cat4/5 hurricanes in the last 5 years than there were in the previous 50.

• Exacerbate the crime risk in local neighborhoods.

• Deal a severe blow to the natural environment by demolishing approximately 150 neighborhood trees and other wildlife.

• Fail to accomplish its original objective of improving traffic circulation, because the city chose not to retain the right of way to extend Doherty Drive to Fell Road.

 

High-credibilty evidence for these statements, based mostly on official government documents, is laid out in the preceding pages.