By Chris Yow
Editor
TRUSSVILLE — The buck stops here; the school bus doesn’t. At least that is what the residents of Trussville Springs conveyed last night during a homeowner’s association meeting when discussing the entrance — or lack thereof — to their neighborhood.
Trussville Springs sits just north of the Cahaba River on U.S. 11, and with no dedicated entrance, residents say there is a serious concern for safety. Not only is the current entrance unsafe during rush hour traffic, where one resident said he spent 35 minutes sitting just off the highway waiting for a train to move, but also for school children who have to catch a bus for school.
Currently, children who ride the school bus have to stand just feet from the entrance to the neighborhood and the busy highway in the morning hours. Chris Purdy, a resident, said if the children do not stand near the road, the school bus will pass without stopping.
“You have to be within 20 feet of highway 11 to look left toward the city to see the school bus coming,” he said. “If the kids aren’t all the way out at the far end, the buses will keep driving by. So, the kids have to stand out next to the highway during morning traffic. I wouldn’t want to stand out there, and I’m an adult.”
Steve Tanner said in the Trussville Springs’ homeowner’s meeting Monday night the school buses will not cross the tracks at the entrance he was told because the crossing does not have warning lights or crossing arms.
Jim Kirkland, transportation spokesman from Trussville City Schools, said the reason school buses cannot enter Trussville Springs is the lack of a place to maneuver the school bus in order to get back out of the neighborhood.
“The existing roads now are narrow, but in addition to that, they park on the street,” he said. “There isn’t anywhere for the bus to turn around.”
The problem of the school bus stop is a smaller part of a larger problem, however, according to some residents. With the only entrance to the neighborhood being a short stretch of pavement crossing a railroad track, there is little room for cars if a train is passing or stopped on the crossing.
“It’s dangerous,” resident Jimmy Vinyard said. “Somebody is going to get hurt because there isn’t enough space for cars to stop and get out of the road.”
Purdy, said he has spoken with the city, the developers and everyone he knows to contact in order to find a solution to this problem.
At Monday’s homeowner’s meeting, many residents didn’t feel as though they were given sufficient answers to when they could expect a safer option. Barry Stalnaker, a representative of the founding company, told The Tribune he understands the concerns of residents, but he and the developer have worked diligently to coordinate with the Alabama Department of Transportation and Norfolk Southern railroad to find a solution to the problem.
“I understand there are people in this community that simply do not believe that we’ve been trying,” Stalnaker said.
He told residents during the meeting, the plans were not finished because they needed approval from Norfolk Southern to finish the final schematics. This is at least the third time the developer has attempted to build a separate entrance. A previous attempt was stalled due to an error when ALDOT failed to put proper notice of road work up on the highway, making the 2-day window for the contractors unworkable.
“I got here on a Friday expecting there to be equipment, but there wasn’t,” he said. “It wasn’t something we were required to do, it was something ALDOT was required to do. Since they hadn’t done it, we weren’t allowed to close the road. That meant we lost the window Dunn Construction had to do the project.”
Stalnaker said he no longer has any issues with ALDOT or Norfolk Southern, and he understands these things take time.
“The railroad has a way they do things. It’s not political, they just do it,” Stalnaker said. “The railroad moves at the railroad’s pace. They’ve been very cooperative with us.”
The neighborhood has had a good relationship in the past with the railroad, and there was at one time an understanding of the conductors that they would stop before the entrance, but Stalnaker said that has recently not been the case.
“We want to get back to that relationship,” Stalnaker said. “We don’t want them mad at us. As far as harassing them, at this point, I don’t know that we want to get on their bad side.”
Vineyard replied, “It looks like we already are.”
Following the meeting, few answers were given as to when a new entrance may begin and certainly not to a potential end date. Residents said they hope to see progress soon, and something safer for their community.
“It’s not better when there are this many more residents and the news here,” Purdy said. “We want what we were told we were going to get when we moved in.”