Open letter to county commission
Dear County Commissioners:
— SUSAN MARSHALL's editorial in last week's Peabody Gazette-Bulletin gave me the opening to express some opinions that I have long had about the road conditions in Marion County. It is my opinion that Marion County must be one of the few counties whose roads are in worse condition than they were 20 years ago.
I agree with the editor that the county roads are much more scenic. I also agree that First Street is the best way to travel. It is several miles further for me to drive it to work, but I only have to drive on two and one-fourth miles of Marion County roads and only one-fourth mile of that is not paved. But those two miles on Timber are very treacherous.
I challenge those of you wanting to take a drive to go to Timber from 60th and south to the Marion/Butler County line. Or take 30th from Old Mill to the Marion/Harvey County line. The speed limit is evidently 55 mph because it is unmarked. It is impossible to drive 55 mph and stay in your own lane. (That is if you even know where your lane is. Without yellow lines it is just a guess which portion of the road is really yours.) And these are the paved roads.
When it comes to the gravel roads, the lanes are pretty well marked by tire tracks — there usually are three and you have to choose which ones to use.
Then there are the gravel roads that the road crew tries to fix by piling rocks on top. Usually the rocks are between the size of a golf ball and a tennis ball. Currently the mile on Quail Creek between 30th and 20th is so rough with the new rock that I've had to idle down the road and still use the brakes. (I'm sure glad I don't wear dentures because they would have worked themselves loose in that mile.)
The next time it rains, the road grader will come through and push all of that rock, making a ridge on one side that is so high that it narrows the road more and pushes the other half of the rock into the ditch. I also might point out that this is extremely hard on tires.
I realize that money is tight and I'm not offering any solutions because I don't have any. It's just that we in the southern end of the county pay the same amount of tax as those in the northern end. Our school buses, if none other, need to have safe roads to travel. I also realize that with the freezing/thawing and heavy trucks using our roads, they tend to break down. But I still don't understand why one hole gets a bit of rock or blacktop thrown into it and the hole beside it is left to get worse.
My last comment/question is why aren't there any lines on the county roads? Does it cost that much to put lines on the road? Does Marion County not have the equipment? Or are the roads so narrow that if lines were painted in the middle, neither lane would be wide enough to be legal?
Thank you for listening. I trust you will continue to remember this end of the county as you plan how to spend our tax money.
Margaret Brewer
Peabody
