History proves there is a better solution to Roy Kidd Ave. issue

I had no intention of writing about the one-way street debacle in Corbin this week, but due to the response from my column last week I feel obligated to do so. I had telephone calls, comments on the Internet and since I attended the 13th Regional basketball tournament, I had several people making comments to me in person.

I had several interesting comments, and one in particular that made so much sense that I wish I had thought of it first. You are probably aware that a portion of Roy Kidd Avenue from Kentucky Avenue to Main Street going west, and from Main Street to Depot Street going east was voted by the mayor and two commissioners to become one-way. This has become a very unpopular move according to our readers, and they have let me know about it.

I do appreciate the comments, which were 100 percent supportive of my column, but telling me will not change a thing. The people to contact are at City Hall.

I did notice that a property on Roy Kidd Avenue, in the section that has drawn the most criticism, appeared as sold in the deeds on our Public Records page of our newspaper last week also.

Not knowing about the sale of the building, I contested needing additional parking. In the parking lot behind our office are 38 spaces, of which at least 25 are vacant every day. It is one block from the proposed additional parking. I have no information about this, but if the new owner should want additional parking at their front door, then I have no problem with that.

But the reason for the change came from a person in the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet citing it as a “safety” issue, not a parking problem. So, let’s look at safety. City Commissioner Brandon Shepherd cited figures that showed there have been 20 accidents at this intersection in the past five years.

Now, here is the reason I am writing about this issue again. Some knowledgeable people told me that most of the accidents have occurred from traffic coming from Kentucky Ave. over to Main St. I drove through the area and, sure enough, it is hard to see oncoming traffic

These same people said it would make more sense to make the section between Kentucky Ave. and Main St. one-way going west. That means you could turn left off Main St. and enter Kentucky Ave. and still have the additional parking that was proposed.

I was also given a picture (above) taken many years ago that shows diagonal parking on Roy Kidd Ave. between Main St. and Depot St., plus there is two-way traffic.

This could be done now and I doubt if anybody would have a problem with it. As for safety? There probably would be very few accidents at the Main St. intersection. It certainly is worth a try.

I have a problem with the City saying the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet is doing us a favor. That favor should have been done long ago by fixing Kentucky Ave. which is also Highway U.S. 25.

I wrote this last summer, but I’ll repeat it. I drove from Berea to Corbin on U.S. 25 and the road was excellent until I got to downtown Corbin, that is Kentucky Ave.

It took the state over 15 years to finally do something about Gordon Hill and Highway 312, also a state highway. How long will it take to fix Kentucky Ave.?

People in our community have come up with a better solution to the Roy Kidd Ave. problem. Maybe we should listen to them!