Why does FMSD only listen to gold hill rd side of town?

[plotzonit]

I was at the meeting last night as well. One of the issues mentioned was the traffic on Doby's Bridge Road. After all was said and done, one of the School Board Members expressed their gratitude for people coming forth and sharing their views. They also quickly reiterated the bullet points of people's concerns, but I felt was a little too quick to say that traffic would be affected everywhere no matter which option came into play. Although this may be true, of all the routes people would have to take to get their children and/or drop them off - Doby's Bridge Road is the longest NARROW TWO LANE ROAD WITH NO TRAFFIC LIGHTS.

For myself and the others who live in my neighborhood - making a left turn out of our subdivision in the mornings is presently A NIGHTMARE (and this is WITHOUT additional school traffic as proposed by option "3.1").

There is NO Bypass as was promised (in 2009 I believe) and I'm not hanging to any hope of it being completed any time soon.

Many people from the 521 stretch of Doby's Bridge Road (which I'll just call "Doby" from this point) make a left turn onto Fairway Drive in the mornings. This completely HALTS traffic at times. Option "3.1" will mean MORE left turns onto Fairway Drive. Fairway Drive residents have already complained about traffic (speeding) and won't be too happy that even more people will be using their RESIDENTIAL street to get to the new middle school. Now the other options may mean more traffic on Doby as well, however, they don't include EXTRA left turns onto Fairway.

Doby can be pretty treacherous during rush hour. I will state again - NARROW TWO LANE ROAD / NO TRAFFIC LIGHTS! I can attest that I have almost been nailed quite a few times by cars trying to dodge traffic by making quick left turns onto Doby from both Fairway Drive and Kimbrell in front of the oncoming traffic. It's like dodging a bullet sometimes!

Doby is very long and has quite a few neighborhoods - LARGE neighborhoods - gracing it’s shoulders. Many families in these neighborhoods have children of various ages going to elementary AND middle school. It’s great that FMES and FMMS are on the same lot, especially for those parents who have hectic schedules and don’t want to drive all over the Fort Mill map under the new “3.1” option trying to maintain their children’s schedules as well as their own and creating even MORE traffic problems and potential danger ON A NARROW TWO LANE ROAD WITH NO TRAFFIC LIGHTS (that will possibly be adding a day care center to its shoulder as advertised by the Carolina Kids sign posted on the lot of Doby and Williams Rd. – More traffic on a narrow two lane road with no traffic lights!).

Now, it's only fair for me to say that I heard there were plans of installing a traffic light (hearsay - I can't state this for a fact) at the corner of Williams and Doby's Bridge Road. Sounds great, huh? Well not for the residents of White Grove who only have the option of making a LEFT off of White Grove Drive or a LEFT off of Nims Lake - BOTH exits for this subdivision are within feet of Williams. So a possible light there would mean White Grove residents would get stuck by traffic stopped at the light.

So - not only is option "3.1" a complete dud in my opinion, I think it carries the possibility of danger. It will be more SCHOOL BUSES with children on them having to make these left turns and dodge some bullets as well.

[baggleflap]

I am happy with Fort Mill schools. I don't have a problem having my kids go to any new school in Ft Mill. I know they will get quality educations. BUT, I have two BIG beefs with reassignment Options 2,3 and 3.1.

People already KNOW how bad traffic is on Doby's Bridge Rd. Currently, a high percentage of traffic travels North on Doby's in the morning and South in the afternoon. With options 2 & 3, there will be traffic going BOTH ways in the AM and both ways in the PM, with school traffic turning onto Fairway to get to Banks St. With option 3.1, there will be traffic turning right onto Fairway from the North and LEFT onto Fairway from the South. When I look at the traffic flow around Ft Mill, I see multiple ways to travel to and from each school. Springfield MS has 21, Business 21, Gold Hill Rd, Steele St and Springfield PkWy. For Gold Hill, you basically only have 160 and Gold Hill Rd, but they are both 4+lanes AND have traffic lights. FMMS only has 160, Springfield PkWy and for a few, Steele St. It works for the most part (barely) because school traffic is going in the same direction. There will be a bunch of options for getting to the new middle school DEPENDING on where you live. You have 160, Sutton, Banks St, Pleasant Rd, Spratt, Fort Mill PkWy, and you could even jump on 77 down to Sutton. BUT, from Doby's BR, you have Doby's to Fairway to Banks or Doby's all the way up to 160 and back around to Banks. I'm pretty sure most parents will be turning onto Fairway. I hope the school board looks at the traffic patterns on Doby's Bridge Rd. It's not easy going west from Doby's. Isn't that the reason for the FUTURE ByPass? But honestly, does anyone really know when that's going to happen??

My other MAJOR beef is pulling a very small percentage of kids away from their friends at FMES and FMMS to go to a school where they know no one. THEN, after making friends, joining clubs and participating in sports and music, that same very small percentage of kids gets pulled out to go to NaFo while the REST of the student body continues on to FMHS. Where's the continuity in that? It's that very small percentage that I object to. I know the school board is trying to lower the enrollment at FMMS to prepare for the influx from the Massey development and others along Doby's BR. But as with the ByPass, that could take YEARS.

In my opinion, no one on Doby's Bridge Rd should be assigned to MS #4 until the ByPass is operational. (Beef #1) At that time, a LARGER proportion of neighborhoods could be reassigned to MS #4 from Doby's BR which in turn will solve Beef #2.

[plotzonit]

Wow! I got my Fort Mill Times yesterday and read the "Letter to the Editor" section. A couple of letters were written in response to the "3.1" or "4" proposal. One was actually titled "Waste of Time". Basically this person thinks it's a waste of time for parents to complain about the proposal and people should just let the school board do their job ("because they've always done a great job"). I'm wondering if this person has no kids or their child/children are grown up - or they just don't care. I just wanted to point out that most boards doing any kind of job have often utilized the opinions of the people their "proposals" will affect so that they can come up with the most beneficial solution for all (or listen to the people with the most money if they're not worth their weight in salt, which I don't think is the case with our own School Board. I want to believe in them). It's obvious you can't please all of the people all of the time, however, to say that parents fighting for what they think is best for their children "is a waste of time"... well, I just don't know what to say to that. For me, I will ALWAYS have a say in what I think is best for my family whether someone else thinks it's a complete waste of time or not. Yea, that's right - I went there.

[lovemyroses]

I agree with six the in the family. Good luck!

[bibit612]

Apparently, Option 3.1 passed, but the school opening may be delayed due to lack of funding. Here's an excerpt from the Herald Online.

Fort Mill may delay school's opening | The Herald - Rock Hill, SC