Residents oppose parkway design

by Karen E. Culp

SBJ Staff

River Bluff Parkway is no easy street. A contentious meeting June 29 solidified residents' opposition to the plan and caused some heated moments along the way.

River Bluff Parkway is a proposed east-west roadway that would be built in south Greene County. Much of the proposed area is outside the city limits of Springfield, which concerned Greene County Presiding Commissioner Dave Coonrod, who spoke in opposition to the plan at the public meeting.

"I can't support this proposal the way it is. I won't be a party to ramming a project down the community's throat," Coonrod said.

City of Springfield general funds paid for Scott Consulting Engineers to study the issue and propose a plan for the parkway, said Teri Whitmore, senior planner for the city.

About $79,000 was expended for the study, Whitmore added. The June 29 meeting was the third and final public meeting to be held on the matter.

The parkway, which is proposed to be a linear park that contains a roadway, would be lined with greenspaces and landscaped, Whitmore said. The idea for this and three other parkways in the Springfield area arose out of the Vision 20/20 plan.

Though the engineering firm has made a proposal for the parkway, and the city's staff has identified its total cost as being more than $50 million, no funding source has yet been identified.

"It would have to come from a new and different tax, not from the existing quarter-cent or any of the existing taxes. We would have to find a new, dedicated source," Whitmore said.

The Metropolitan Planning Organization will make a decision by October as to whether it recommends this plan. If a recommendation is made, City Council and the Greene County Commission will have to make decisions on the plan.

The Metropolitan Planning Organization is made up of representatives from the city and county, and the MPO has been asked to take the lead in developing the plan for River Bluff Parkway, said Fred May, director of Planning and Development for the city. The study process for the parkway began in January of 1998.

The proposal calls for a parkway to be built in phases, with the first phase running east-west in south Greene County from Kansas Expressway to Campbell Avenue and on to Cox Road. That portion of the parkway is to cost about $7.9 million and would be completed between 2005 to 2008, May said.

Remaining phases would be built over the next 11 years, with the process ending in 2019.

"It is our charge to look at the feasibility of doing this parkway, and then to present our findings to the MPO. At this point we have no idea whether it will actually happen or not," May said.

Residents who attended the meeting, about 230 in all, were strongly in favor of the project not happening at all.

City Manager Tom Finnie responded, saying the parkway project is not staff-driven.

"It comes from the community-driven Vision 20/20 and the public meeting ... was moderated by the citizen chair of that Vision 20/20 committee. The project design was a conscious effort to balance neighborhood needs with the wider community interest. It is my belief that if this right-of-way is not reserved before more development makes it impossible, that five years from now there will be community consensus and editorials saying a major mistake was made in 1999," Finnie said.

Finnie further stated that it was "unfortunate that people feel they have to attack officials who are doing their job."

The mapping process for the project is to be completed by 2001, and Mayor Lee Gannaway said that by that time, the majority of property for the parkway will still be in the county.

"For the next major step, the county's going to take the lead because I don't anticipate that those areas will be annexed by 2001. For that reason, the city won't have the authority during that portion of the process," Gannaway said.

Whitmore said the city staff will now report on the comments it has received to the MPO.

Neil Loeding was among those in attendance who favored a different design for the plan than what is proposed, and was circulating a petition to that effect.

"Why do we need this here? Christian County could better benefit from something like this. We've got east-west roadways established already," Loeding said.