From Emory via the Clairmont Heights Civic Association blog…

To the Emory Community: The following two non-Emory projects have implications for those driving to and from campus. Please plan your travel accordingly.

1. DeKalb County continues repairing and repaving North Decatur Road between Clifton Road and Emory Village. Lanes will remain open but delays are likely. This project includes milling off the top surface of the road, patching the existing roadway, and repaving this section of North Decatur Road, including the roundabout in Emory Village. It is expected to be complete in approximately two weeks.

2. Next Wednesday through Friday, June 8-10, Lullwater Road will be closed in the evening (6:00 p.m. until approximately 8:00 a.m.) between Ponce de Leon Avenue and North Decatur Road for a movie shoot. DeKalb County will have officers and signage on site during the closure.

Driving Miss Daisy: The Sequel?

Some of the biggest changes yet are about to be implemented at Emory’s North Decatur intersection as construction of the Emory Village roundabout continues. Kathy sends in this email just sent out by Emory…

To the Emory Community:

The next phase of DeKalb County’s construction for the roundabout in Emory Village is scheduled to begin this Thursday, March 17 and will have several traffic implications.

· Dowman Drive will re-open to traffic entering Emory’s campus.

· South Oxford Road (near Everybody’s Pizza) will close for approximately 60 days as construction crews work on that section of the roundabout. (North Oxford Road near the Chevron station and Emory’s campus will remain open.)

· Traffic lights in the North Decatur Road intersection of Emory Village will be permanently removed and replaced with stop signs. This three-way stop intersection will remain in place until South Oxford is opened to traffic again. At that point, the intersection will operate as a four-way stop until the roundabout is completed.

· Pedestrian crosswalks will continue to allow access through Emory Village, including Everybody’s Pizza and Saba on South Oxford Road.

Drivers, pedestrians and cyclists should continue to use caution during the construction. The entire Emory Village roundabout and streetscape improvement project is expected to be completed this summer. For updates, visit www.emoryvillage.org.

As soon as the Emory Village roundabout is completed, the Alliance to Improve Emory Village hopes to build the above “pocket park” at the corner of North Oxford Road and North Decatur Road, which currently plays the part of an unfortunate and needless extension of the defunct Chevron gas station’s concrete pad.

As you can tell from a quick glance at the image above is so much more than a concrete street corner.  It will include a creek-esque “water feature”, trees, shrubs, and stone seat wall, and green space.   According to Emory’s release, “Benches and seating spaces to accommodate 40 people will be installed. Eight of the more than 50 new trees that will be planted in the Village will be in the park.”

The Alliance says it still needs to raise $40,000 by June to build the $300,000 park.

If you’d like to study this park “concept plan” more closely, check out this PDF.

h/t: Fresh Loaf

Like this.

Click the pic to enlarge and zoom in (PDF)

You can read an update on construction progress over on the Clairmont Heights Civic Association blog and see the coming stages of construction over on the Alliance to Improve Emory Village website.

For all my talk about mass transit, I, like most people, still use a car on an almost daily basis.  And the Emory BP has been my go to station.  Close and relatively cheap compared to everything else in the vicinity.

Welp, it looks like I’m about to start paying more to fill up.  Maybe this is a sign that I should finally go diesel/bi0-diesel.

A reader sends in parts of a note that was just sent out to Emory staff…

“… the BP station in Emory Village has been sold and will close as of June 1, Emory University did NOT purchase it, … did not know what plans have been made for that property.”

Just wondering if you have any leads on who purchased this property and what the plans are?

Also, fyi, here is the remainder of the email detailing the Emory Village project and future plans for this summer and the rest of the year:

“…The water line project in Emory Village is complete. Georgia Power will now begin the process of burying overhead utilities, including electricity, cable TV, and telephone. This phase is expected to begin in June and extend into fall, perhaps through the end of the calendar year. The work is scheduled to take place mainly between 8pm and 5am, but will nonetheless be disruptive. DeKalb County has gone to bid for construction of the roundabout, with an anticipated start date in August, and a one year duration. So it looks like Emory Village will be a mess for another year…”

If you thought highway gridlock was bad, then you’ve never been stuck going east on N. Decatur on a weekday afternoon.

Paula sums up the firsthand experience nicely in a recent letter to our CEO…

Dear Mr. Ellis:

My husband commutes by shuttle bus to Emory from Decatur, a distance of approximately 4 miles. Lately, the commute home has been taking 50 minutes or more. This is due almost entirely to the mis-timed traffic lights on North Decatur Rd at Clairemont Rd. Because the light in front of the McDonald’s entrance on North Decatur Rd. is so long and improperly synchronized with the light at the intersection, very few cars can get through in any one light cycle. As a result, it can take 30 minutes or more simply to travel the one mile from Emory to Clairmont Rd.

I would very much appreciate it if you could arrange to have the timing on these lights adjusted, or direct me to the appropriate official.

I certainly concur that the “McDonald’s light” is an absolute annoyance, the bigger challange is having one of the state’s largest employers, smack dab in the middle of a residential district.   While plans are still “go” for a roundabout at the university’s main entrance, no amount of road tweaking can quell the mob that is coming and going from campus all day long.

What IS the answer?  Long-term, Decatur is looking into the feasibility of light-rail or signal coordination for buses between Emory and Decatur (see page 23 of the Streets section of the Community Transportation Plan), but even that won’t eliminate Emory’s problem.  What else can be done?  Anything?