I have my reservations about the new roundabouts at Exit 15

Last week I was heading from Williamsburg back to Corbin after a day of typing in public records at the courthouse and judicial center, and I took a trip partially around the two new roundabouts, which are being built off of Exit 15 at Goldbug.

Mark White is Editor of The News Journal.

Hopefully, the folks over at Kentucky Transportation Cabinet know what they are doing installing these things, but I am really having a hard time picturing tractor trailers and school buses being able to navigate around these things very well and there will be plenty these type of vehicles using them.

Jones Plastics and the Whitley County school system’s central campus, which has four schools, are located less than two miles from these things, which are right off an interstate exit. It’s a little disconcerting to see.

We’ll soon find out how well they work as construction is supposed to wrap up in a few weeks prior to school starting.

I still think the state would have been better off just cutting the rock walls back about 10 – 20 feet to increase visibility for those coming off the interstate at the two off ramps.

It’s not that I am totally against roundabouts. There are a few places that I can see one working pretty well, but not here. Hopefully, I’m wrong about this though.

As I wrote a few paragraphs ago, I spent much of the day Friday working on public records. These are things, such as marriage licenses, deeds, lawsuits, district court records and public health inspections.

My late friend Ted Forcht used to say you could find out everything you needed to know about a community just by reading the public records page, such as who was getting married, who was getting divorced, who bought or sold property and how much it was worth, etc. He had a good point.

I don’t know that I have ever seen more property transactions in Whitley County than what has been filed over the last few months. I wasn’t really sure there was this much property in Whitley County to be honest.

If you own a house, now is a good time sell as property values are way up. Of course, the problem with that is you then have to find a place to live and much of your profits would be consumed buying a new house.

I am really having a hard time picturing the housing market staying this hot for much longer as many homes I am seeing are selling for far more that what they have traditionally been worth. (A friend told my wife that we could probably get twice what we paid for our house if we sold it right now.) You have to ask yourself where are they going to find people, who can keep paying this much for homes?

It reminds me of when my wonderful wife, Cecelia, and I got married in September 2004 and then started house hunting shortly thereafter. It was a process that involved looking at on average of at least two houses each week for six months. (Cecelia liked house hunting way more than I did…LOL. To her credit, she also frequently knew more about each house than our realtor did though.)

At any rate, I remember riding around in our car looking at houses during this time period with several big ones being built and sellers wanting about $200,000 per home in some cases. I remember discussions we had asking each other where in the world they were going to find all these people, who could afford to spend $200,000 on a home, which was pretty big bucks back then. (Still is to me…LOL.)

Less than one year later, the housing bubble was starting to burst and numerous foreclosures followed.

It took quite a while for the housing market to correct itself, but it eventually did.

Given how much people are paying for homes today, I suspect that in five years I will be writing stories about how people bought homes in 2022, and would like to sell them and upgrade but can’t because they owe far more on their mortgages than what people are willing to pay for their homes.

Like the Exit 15 roundabouts, this is something that I hope I am wrong about though.