BUCKHANNON – The Buckhannon Consolidated Public Works Board has decided to implement their plan to make Apothecary Way and Capps Street one-way.
The Consolidated Public Works Board was asked to rethink the topic during their May 25 meeting.
Mayor Robbie Skinner said a community member attended a previous city council meeting to express her concerns about the change.
“The reason I put this on the agenda was because Mrs. Linger was here at a council meeting earlier in May; she was concerned about the closure of the alleys and asked council to reopen the alleys,” Skinner said. “I sent her a lengthy email explaining the whole process, as to how we got to the conclusion that the alleys would be closed, and that St. Joseph’s Hospital owns the property and has a desire for development on that property, so therefore, the alleys would not be reopened.”
Skinner said the grant-funded Gateway West project also did not put cuts in the sidewalk for the alleys, which signals they would not be reopened.
“We have continued to try to figure out the best way forward with the traffic on Apothecary Way,” Skinner said. “The last meeting, we had changed the directions of both Apothecary Way and Capps Street, and Capps Street is the one on the east side of CVS, in front of The Sign Guy.”
“We talked about making Capps Street one-way going north, toward Main Street from Franklin Street, and Apothecary Way one-way going south from Main Street to Franklin Street and that was approved,” he added.
Skinner said the change has not yet been implemented and asked the board if they would like to do something different. The Consolidated Board then discussed options that were presented in the past but ultimately concluded the one-way solution was still the best option.
City recorder Randy Sanders said it was time to move forward with the one-way designations.
“In my opinion, we made a motion, which passed, and I would recommend that we implement or rescind the motion,” Sanders said. “This decision was made, but we never implemented it.”
Board member Pam Bucklew said she would like to see signage establishing the streets as one-way, and Skinner said there would have to be signs marking the areas “one way” and “do not enter.”
“I don’t like to go back on things after the board has decided, so I’m inclined to agree with Randy,” Skinner said. “If the board voted to create the one way, then we probably should just go ahead and create the one way. We need to paint; it needs to be visible. We need to put up the signage because I don’t see any other way to make it work.”
