Inquirer: Reader is concerned about children at Veterans Parkway bus stop

Road widening projects are never pleasant. Property gets pretty much taken (OK, bought) from its owners; the roadway encroaches closer to homes and businesses and traffic is a nightmare for months, if not years.

But you get a better road in the end and everybody’s happy … well, except the perpetual grumps who gripe about everything, and who cares what they think?

But I heard a new road-widening gripe I haven’t heard before. A Concerned (yet anonymous) Reader called to say she’s concerned about school children waiting for the bus in front of the Spring Creek Village apartments on Veterans Parkway just north of Moon Road.

“The road and driveway are torn up and there are tractors, backhoes and all kinds of heavy equipment going back and forth,” she said. “And the children are forced to stand in the driveway waiting for the bus.”

She said at one point the children were told to stand on a nearby patch of grass to the side of the driveway, but the next day there was a big piece of heavy equipment parked there.

She said she called the Muscogeee County School District and spoke to someone (though she didn’t remember who) and was told in a not-so-friendly way that she shouldn’t be taking pictures of children at the bus stop.

“I took that as kind of a veiled threat,” she said. “So I told her I was going to call someone else.”

I guess that was me.

I spoke to Willie Brown, the district’s assistant director of transportation, who said he was familiar with the situation (and the Concerned Reader) and said the problem had been taken care of. But he said any further communication would have to come through Valerie Fuller, the district’s director of communication. It’s “protocol,” he said.

That’s why I prefer dealing with the Consolidated Government. If I have a public works question, I call Pat Bielger, director of such. Engineering? I call Donna Newman. Planning? Rick Jones. I can also get City Manager Isaiah Hugley or City Attorney Clifton Fay on the phone without going through a communications person.

That’s the way to run a railroad.

Anyway, since this is a Georgia Department of Transportation project, I’ll call DOT board member Sam Wellborn next week and see what he might know about the situation.

Stay tuned.

What’s with the old bus?

While I was in the neighborhood, I saw something that a Concerned Reader named Jim has been after me to look into. Just north of the aforementioned driveway, nestled back in the woods, there is an ancient bus sitting there. For years, probably decades, it must have been invisible from the road until the contractors began clearing the right of way for the widened road.

It looks pretty old and in pretty bad shape (kind of like looking in a mirror).

Anybody know the story behind that old bus? If so …

This story was originally published August 21, 2016 at 9:34 PM with the headline "Inquirer: Reader is concerned about children at Veterans Parkway bus stop."