In the second half of my City Talk column today, I write about the obvious incompatibilities of having a racetrack serve as an access road for businesses on Hutchinson Island and for several planned or plotted high-end residential developments.
Adam Van Brimmer’s front page piece about the racetrack discusses the persistent illegal racing there, which was widely known, and impending discussions about possibly putting immovable barricades at two points on the track.
From Police warned of road’s dangers:
Grand Prize of America Avenue was designed with banked corners, rumble strips and a pit-and-paddock area in order to host the occasional sanctioned racing event.
A March 13 memo from Police Chief Willie Lovett to City Manager Stephanie Cutter reads the road “seems to have become a location where non-sanctioned racing occurs.â€
The correspondence notes police patrols regularly encounter drivers and motorcyclists “testing the limits of their vehicles†and performing “dangerous maneuvers.†The letter also states the road is used as a pedestrian walkway and a bicycling area.
“This mixed use will invariably lead to tragic consequences if not addressed,†Lovett wrote.
And this:
The businesses do need the loop road, but all of them were willing to sign off on the barricades.
Their leaders had engaged in a series of meetings about the dangers of the road going back three years, according to Bob Myrick with Myrick Marine. He recalls once turning onto Grand Prize of America Avenue and rounding a curve only to see two “souped-up Hondas†running side by side and right at him.
“You have concrete guardrails on both sides and no place to go,†Myrick said. “Ben Tucker’s death is the first tragedy out there, but it could just as easily be the second or third.â€
The discussions and background work culminated in the on-site meeting of the city, county, police and fire officials nine days ago.
The only details left to work out involved verifying that the agreement struck when the road was built allowed parts of it to be closed to all traffic and determining which group would assume the financial burden of removing and reinstalling the barricades for special events.
The problem of course — as I point out in my column — is that the current uses and needs do not account for all future uses. Take a look at the two screenshots below. The first is simply a map of the racetrack area. The second is from Sagis.org, highlighting parcels slated for development. A master plan should be forthcoming for three of those parcels.
So could we find a way to provide access to Grand Prize of America Avenue for the relatively small number of businesses that need access now? Sure, that seems possible.
But what about all those additional residents who will possibly be living right next to the track?
I don’t know exactly how often the track is used for sanctioned events, but I can only recall three days — the three very annoying days of the Savannah Speed Classic.
When we have more uses and residents on Hutchinson, there will inevitably be calls to a) provide full acess to a perimeter road, b) police that road regularly to prevent racing, and c) end the noise disruption caused even by a single weekend event.
It seems pretty clear that we’ll eventually dismantle the racetrack in some form or another. That’s going to be an expensive road job, for sure.
I try really hard to see planning issues through a broad lens and imagine all sorts of possibilities. But I can’t see any way that we can keep a racetrack as a public road and at the same time accommodate all the current and planned land uses on Hutchinson Island.