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June 2008
A toll for Ronald Reagan Parkway extension?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Most mornings and evenings, Monday through Friday, you can find me driving Ronald Reagan Parkway. Living in Snellville and working off Jimmy Carter Boulevard, I’ve found it the best route for my commute.
I’m not alone, of course. At last check, the parkway was traveled by 27,000 to 45,000 vehicles a day, depending on the location. It can get pretty crowded - even backed up at times like Monday morning when one lane was closed for median maintenance. Ronald Reagan Parkway doesn’t take me all the way to my office. I follow it to its end at Pleasant Hill Road (or sometimes get off at Lawrenceville Highway) and then zig-zag my way to work.
So, news that the county is interested in finding a private contractor who would extend the road to I-85 caught my attention. The idea is that the contractor would take on the project and then charge tolls on the new section to cover expenses and provide a profit.
Contractors have until Aug. 11 to submit proposals.
When Ronald Reagan Parkway was built, it was meant to fill the need for a cross-county connector. Gwinnett County had plenty of corridors that radiated from the Perimeter out, but few multi-lane roads crossing those corridors.
Ronald Reagan Parkway also was an important route to ease travel from Snellville to the Gwinnett Place Mall area.
The road was originally planned to extend from Snellville to I-85. It didn’t make it that far, delivering its traffic to Pleasant Hill instead.
Even without that last leg, the project cost about $44 million. It opened 14 years ago.
The project was a tough one. It ran into opposition all along the way. There were owners of homes in the path who opposed the route, environmentalists concerned about potential damage to wetlands and rare plants and others concerned about an historic home and an old quartz quarry used by Native Americans to make arrowheads.
The county dug up 200 orchid lady-slippers and donated them to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. Plans were altered to protect wetlands, and historical artifacts were rescued, documented and donated.
Although those concerns were resolved, there was additional controversy when a newly elected county commissioner served as the real estate agent for a landowner along one proposed path for the last stretch to I-85.
Eventually, the plans for the last leg were set aside and have never been picked back up. Transportation priorities changed. And the last stretch would have cost about $81 million about 12 years ago. The price would be even more now.
Thus the interest in a public-private partnership, one of the first — if not the first — proposed by a county in Georgia.
Will demand support it?
I don’t know.
While I think the road should connect with I-85, I’m not sure if I would be willing to pay a toll for the extra length to the interstate.
It would depend on how much time and traffic the extension would shave from my commute. How much the toll would cost. How backed up I-85 would be once I got there.
Lots of questions.
I’ll be interested in hearing the answers.
What do you think about a public-private partnership to extend Ronald Reagan Parkway? Would you be willing to pay a toll for the last leg of the road?
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How do you keep kids reading in summer?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“Happy summer! Stay safe and READ!!!” the school sign said.
I wondered how many would do that.
Not stay safe.
How many will read?
Summer reading programs have around as long as I remember. I recall walking to my elementary school library, a quiet and cool oasis, the two window air-conditioning units humming. We’d spend an hour picking out and stacking up our selections.
At home, we’d methodically work through them, logging them on the small, folded, paper sheets that would earn us recognition, if nothing else, when school resumed.
Today there are so many other attractions - and distractions - for kids. How many spend time lying around with books?
According to Denise Auger, community partnership coordinator for the Gwinnett County Public Library, 20,842 children - including teens - signed up for Gwinnett’s summer reading program in 2007.
The program has grown each year — some of that paralleling Gwinnett County’s population growth and the expansion of the library system. The number of library cards issued by Gwinnett is up 60 percent since 2000.
Gwinnett’s system has worked to accommodate and attract summer users, Auger said.
Among its efforts, the library allows online sign up for the summer reading program. Visit Gwinnett Public Library site. It offers separate programs for the preschool ages grade school ages, but offers them simultaneously to help out mothers who may have children in both ranges. Storytellers, puppet shows and a magician are among this year’s scheduled attractions at branches.
Because day care centers - due to liability issues and car seat rules - have cut back on outings to the libraries, the library is sending outreach staff to the day care centers. This year, libraries have added evening programs to better accommodate working parents and working teens.
Sessions directly targeting teens - including one where you learn to apply theatrical makeup — have been added, Auger said. It’s a fun activity that draws teens in and then can be connected back to literature, she said.
The library system also has garnered $285,000 in prizes and sponsorships from local businesses, some given to kids when they sign up and others reserved for those who complete the program and turn their reading logs back into the library. The prizes range from Chick-fil-A and Cici’s Pizza certificates to free passes to local museums and arts centers.
While it’s true there are other interests for kids nowadays, Auger said, and the library has to work “a little harder,” she doesn’t really see those other interests as competition. There is nothing like the summer reading program — it is right in the community, and it is all “absolutely free,” she said.
When my kids were young, we would sign up each summer. We’d start off strong. After a few weeks, however, summer trips, vacation Bible school and other activities would interrupt the effort. Sometimes we would get back on track and turn in the completed logs. Sometimes not.
About 16 percent of the kids who signed up last year turned in their reading lists at the end of the summer, Auger said.
“That doesn’t mean others didn’t complete the program,” she said. Mothers often find it difficult to get back and turn in the paperwork, she said.
This year, they are hoping the prizes will motivate more to do so.
Reading in the summer is more than just an inexpensive pastime. Multiple studies support the importance of reading to student performance. Check out a few
In one, researcher Barbara Heyns followed sixth- and seventh-graders in the Atlanta public schools through two school years and the intervening summer.
Among her findings:
• The number of books read during the summer is consistently related to academic gains.
• Children in every income group who read six or more books over the summer gained more in reading achievement than children who did not.
Do (or did) your children participate in summer reading programs? What’s been your experience? How do you encourage summer reading?
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