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Getting more bang for the buck
DOT looking to innovative ways to fix traffic woes, board member says
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Crissie Elric
Bryan County News
Updated: May 14, 2013, 11:14 PM
Published: May 14, 2013, 11:16 PM

Members of the North Bryan Chamber of Commerce learned a little of what is going on in the Georgia Department of Transportation whenGeorgia’s 1stCongressional District Board Member Ann Purcell paid the group a visit on May 15.

Purcell, a former state representative and native of Glennville, won the seat on the board back in February. She told the group she was pleased to be able to represent this region ofGeorgiaon the GDOT state transportation board.

“I am glad to be your spokesperson on the DOT board for the state ofGeorgiaand I’m glad to represent the first congressional district which entails 15 whole counties and two split counties,” Purcell told the group. “So we have a large district and we have a lot of needs down here and our needs are no different from any of the other 13 congressional districts because their needs are important too.”

Purcell informed the group of alternatives the DOT is working on for regions of the state that did not pass the TIA—or Transportation Investment Act.

“We tried but we just didn’t sell it well enough and maybe some of that was because of mistrust in our transportation department, maybe that was because citizens didn’t understand exactly what was going on,” Purcell said. “But let me tell you one thing, we did miss a good opportunity by not passing the TIA, but we’ve got to accept that and we’ve got to move forward.”

While there is no real “Plan B,” she said, the state is looking at several options for projects to ease traffic congestion when it comes to getting the “biggest bang for the dollar.”

One option is a diamond interchange, Purcell said, similar to larger interchanges inAtlanta. Another option, she said, is using roundabouts in the coastal region.

Read full story in May 15 issue of the Bryan County News.

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Later yall, its been fun
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Ted O'Neil
Updated: May 23, 2018, 6:03 PM
Published: May 23, 2018, 6:05 PM

This is among the last pieces I’ll ever write for the Bryan County News.

Friday is my last day with the paper, and come June 1 I’m headed back to my native Michigan.

I moved here in 2015 from the Great Lake State due to my wife’s job. It’s amicable, but she has since moved on to a different life in a different state, and it’s time for me to do the same.

My son Thomas, an RHHS grad as of Saturday, also is headed back to Michigan to play basketball for a small school near Ann Arbor called Concordia University. My daughter, Erin, is in law school at University of Toledo. She had already begun her college volleyball career at Lourdes University in Ohio when we moved down here and had no desire to leave the Midwest.

With both of them and the rest of my family up north, there’s no reason for me to stay here. I haven’t missed winter one bit, but I’m sure I won’t miss the sand gnats, either.

Shortly after we arrived here in 2015, I got a job in communications with a certain art school in Savannah for a few short months. It was both personally and professionally toxic and I’ll leave it at that.

In March 2016 I signed on with the Bryan County News as assistant editor and I’ve loved every minute of it. My “first” newspaper career, in the late 80s and early 90s, was great. But when I left it to work in politics and later with a free-market think tank, I never pictured myself as an ink-stained wretch again.

Like they say, never say never.

During my time here at the News, I’ve covered everything that came along. That’s one big difference between working for a weekly as opposed to a daily paper. Reporters at a daily paper have a “beat” to cover. At a weekly paper like this, you cover … life. Sports, features, government meetings, crime, fundraisers, parades, festivals, successes, failures and everything in between. Oh, and hurricanes. Two of them. I’ll take a winter blizzard over that any day.

Along the way I’ve met a lot of great people. Volunteers, business owners, pastors, students, athletes, teachers, coaches, co-workers, first responders, veterans, soldiers and yes, even some politicians.

And I learned that the same adrenalin rush from covering “breaking news” that I experienced right out of college is still just as exciting nearly 30 years later.

With as much as I’ve written about the population increase and traffic problems, at least for a few short minutes my departure means there will be one less vehicle clogging up local roads. At least until I pass three or four moving vans headed this way as I get on northbound I-95.

The hub-bub over growth here can be humorous, unintentional and ironic all at once. We often get comments on our Facebook page that go something like this: “I’ve lived here for (usually less than five years) and the growth is out of control! We need a moratorium on new construction.”

It’s like people who move into phase I of “Walden Woods” subdivision after all the trees are cleared out and then complain about trees being cut down for phase II.

Bryan County will always hold a special place in my heart and I definitely plan on visiting again someday. My hope is that my boss, Jeff Whitten (one of the best I’ve ever had), will let me continue to be part of the Pembroke Mafia Football League from afar. If the Corleone family could expand to Vegas, there’s no reason the PMFL can’t expand to Michigan.

But the main reason I want to return someday is about that traffic issue. After all, I’ll need to see it with my own eyes before I’ll believe that Highway 144 actually got widened.

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