Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
"Snarkily Attack"? a little touchy this morning are we?
Now for some examples of the remaining traffic issues,
Try leaving Southport at 5PM on a weekday.
Try leaving the movie theater to go south onto Long Beach Rd.
And occasionally there is still a 1/4 mile back up of cars making a left onto Long Beach Road from 211.
Now, if all you do is drive straight through that intersection on 211, I have to agree that extra right lane makes it much easier than before.
Ron W
I do leave Southport at 5:00 PM. Its so much better than it used to be that the comparison is laughable. Its not an issue. I turn up and down new and old Long Beach Road all the time. No issues.
The proposed interchange will have no effect on getting in and out of the movie theater. I suspect the issue there is everyone leaving the theater at the same time.
I have not seen a 1/4 mile backup at old Long Beach Road since the new improvements have been completed, but even if true, an interchange costing many millions of dollars is clearly overkill.
The recent modification to 'beach road' has improved traffic flow, most of the time. I just came through there today and it seems a lot of people are in town for the Thanksgiving holiday and traffic seemed to be a bit backed up almost every where I went.
That was today. Brunswick County is one of the fastest growing counties, if not the fastest, in NC. St James alone is predicted to have another 4-5 thousand people in the next 5-6 years. Businesses are already growing along 211 out side St James and no doubt will continue. Growth brings jobs and more people. More people equals more cars and traffic year round as well as beach tourist in season.
Despite what we think of them at times, the DOT is not completely stupid. They have projected increased traffic patterns 10 and 20 years from now. All this work of constructing a four lane 211 with over passes will take years to complete and be a pain in the butt. Much like the bridges on Eagle Island out side Wilmington, SNAFU was general condition on 17 there for years but now traffic is flowing smoothly.
Bottom line is, these improvements are not just for today or next year but for the next 20 years and beyond.
This situation is much like the new Signature Fitness center in SJP. Right now there are times when it can be a little busy but its is far from capacity. But again, with a few thousand additional residents over the next few years, that will change.
Building infrastructure now to accommodate future growth is not a bad thing.
Along those same lines, the new St James road extension out to Middleton will not be ready for resident use until March. All this talk about the construction being done by Christmas had me excited. Well, maybe the road will be done but not the gate house, gates, lighting, landscaping and so on. That will take at least another couple of months.
The recent modification to 'beach road' has improved traffic flow, most of the time. I just came through there today and it seems a lot of people are in town for the Thanksgiving holiday and traffic seemed to be a bit backed up almost every where I went.
That was today. Brunswick County is one of the fastest growing counties, if not the fastest, in NC. St James alone is predicted to have another 4-5 thousand people in the next 5-6 years. Businesses are already growing along 211 out side St James and no doubt will continue. Growth brings jobs and more people. More people equals more cars and traffic year round as well as beach tourist in season.
Despite what we think of them at times, the DOT is not completely stupid. They have projected increased traffic patterns 10 and 20 years from now. All this work of constructing a four lane 211 with over passes will take years to complete and be a pain in the butt. Much like the bridges on Eagle Island out side Wilmington, SNAFU was general condition on 17 there for years but now traffic is flowing smoothly.
Bottom line is, these improvements are not just for today or next year but for the next 20 years and beyond.
This situation is much like the new Signature Fitness center in SJP. Right now there are times when it can be a little busy but its is far from capacity. But again, with a few thousand additional residents over the next few years, that will change.
Building infrastructure now to accommodate future growth is not a bad thing.
All that is true. Brunswick County is growing rapidly. But, its a huge county, and that growth is occurring from Calabash to Leland. There are road improvements needed everywhere in the county. The problem I have is that DOT has a system in place to prioritize projects, and this project was magically able to skip the prioritization process and proceed directly to "go", with no discussion beforehand, either with the public or DOT. Its some sort of political payback, and its not the most effective use of scarce transportation dollars. And the local governments aren't even in agreement on it. Its just a bad deal.
All that is true. Brunswick County is growing rapidly. But, its a huge county, and that growth is occurring from Calabash to Leland. There are road improvements needed everywhere in the county. The problem I have is that DOT has a system in place to prioritize projects, and this project was magically able to skip the prioritization process and proceed directly to "go", with no discussion beforehand, either with the public or DOT. Its some sort of political payback, and its not the most effective use of scarce transportation dollars. And the local governments aren't even in agreement on it. Its just a bad deal.
I certainly understand. I am the first to admit that I am not that politically savvy and I have heard of cases in NC through the years where someone in the state legislature has a property or business and a nice road 'magically' appears to its advantage. I'm not saying it's right but if that is the worst our politicians do I will consider it lucky.
At the meeting held at the Community Center a few months back I do remember it being said this project was 'approved' or 'fast tracked' quicker than any project that DOT engineers could remember. I've no clear idea what the impetus was. I just assumed it was need.
Any time a highway project impacts a community in a major way there will always be those that benefit and some that are not happy with it, especially businesses and homes that are displaced or compromised in some way. Sometimes compensation makes people happy, some times not. Sometimes compromise is made. Sometimes you just have to accept it and move on. In the end it will work out and we will move on.
One thing is inevitable and that is change. It does not matter if you are conservative or liberal, change will happen. If it didn't, we would still be using oil lanterns and riding horses.
The most recent pics of my street in Woodlands are from 10/11/2016. They also have historical aerial pics so you can take a look at the growth of SJP since 2010.
Just go to the TerraServer website and put in your street, city and state then click SEARCH. You will get an Enhanced Image that's probably a few years old. Just click on the most recent image from the list to the left and enjoy. This is a free site (well its our taxes at work).
Hi---I wanted to inquire about which companies folks use for their internet/tv/land line services in St James. I know there are a few options to choose from---we got a letter from ATMC yesterday giving us some details on their plans, so that is what prompted this question. In particular, I was wondering about your experiences with service reliability, helpfulness of customer service/billing people, timeliness/quality of repair technicians, etc. Right now we have Verizon FIOS and are satisfied with the product, so that is our basis of comparison if anyone is familiar with them. Thanks in advance for any help.
We have been using Time Warner Cable for 5 years here in St James... we have the triple play, TV-Internet-Phone..... we had Verizon Fios in NJ.... we are quite happy with our present service, it very rarely goes out, in fact in the last hurricane we didn't lose a minute of service and the customer service is quite good, they come when they say they are coming which is about all you can expect, IMO. I went to a presentation at the community center a while back by ATMC, they talked about how they were planning on spending a Kabillion dollars on future expansion and installation of fiber optics in St James but no explanation of how they'll be able to tear up brand new roads to do it but maybe they will ... someday ... it sounded very nice and they well may do that but I believe I'll be too old to watch TV by the time it actually happens. In short, we are quite satisfied with Time Warner Cable.
I had FiOS in Northern Virginia and have ATMC in SJP. Much of the technology of data (Internet, Video and Phone) transmission is pretty much the same (passive fiber between your house and the head-end). A notable difference is that FiOS, in most cases, uses a device that is like a combined cable modem and router for transmission of data. ATMC uses an ethernet connection from the ONT (the box on the side of your house) to connect to a router. Where this was important to me, when I designed my office I had a cable (coax) connection near my computer so I could have a cable modem/router by my computer and ethernet into my computer. My phone (ethernet) connection is on the other side of the room. If you plan on using all wifi connections (like I ended up doing), it probably does not matter.
FiOS data plans were all symmetrical whereas ATMCs data plans are not (far faster downstream than upstream).
ATMC was running a special when I first moved down here where the 1 Gbps service was the same cost as the 100 Mbps service. My data rates at night were horrible (4-5 Mbps), after lots of calls, time online and a visit to their office, the problem has been corrected. They did admit that there was a data rate issue at St James.
As for TV, my DVR died one day and after a call to their office it was replaced a couple of hours later. I was very pleased with their customer service. One cool feature that my FiOS DVR did not have is that all of the scheduling of TV programs is stored at their head-end which saved me the effort of trying to remember all of the TV programs that I record.
ATMC also has a neat feature that FiOS did not have and that is that they continuously record something like 30 plus HD channels on a 3 hours rolling block, which lets you turn into programs late (if you forgot to record them or are switching between channels) and go back in time a few hours and watch what you missed. Their DVR stores far more programming than my old 7000 series FiOS DVR.
As for TWC, from what I have seen, their initial prices are lower than ATMC for the first year then go up significantly. They employ a traditional Hybrid Fiber Coax system (like most cable companies) They have upgraded their network in SJP and offer robust Internet speeds. Judging by the picture quality at my neighbor's house, its fine. They do offer a couple of channels that ATMC does not like NC14, NHL Network and NYC1.
For those in SJP that are not currently wired with ATMC Fiber, their plan is to start wiring your neighborhood starting in 2017. I watched them wire my old neighborhood in Virginia with its dense clay soil, so the sandy soil here should be a piece of cake. Not to say they won't tear up your lawn though.
Good luck!
Quote:
Originally Posted by WVNomad
Hi---I wanted to inquire about which companies folks use for their internet/tv/land line services in St James. I know there are a few options to choose from---we got a letter from ATMC yesterday giving us some details on their plans, so that is what prompted this question. In particular, I was wondering about your experiences with service reliability, helpfulness of customer service/billing people, timeliness/quality of repair technicians, etc. Right now we have Verizon FIOS and are satisfied with the product, so that is our basis of comparison if anyone is familiar with them. Thanks in advance for any help.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Recent Aerial Pics
