Baldwin’s city leaders are concerned about the impact R-CUTs could have on public safety. Larger emergency vehicles have difficulty rounding the concrete barriers, which, they warn, could slow response times.
“One of the concerns we are having is that our fire trucks don’t fit in R-CUTs,” Baldwin Mayor Stephanie Almagno said during the December 5 city council meeting.
The issue came to light after state Rep. Victor Anderson contacted Almagno about possibly installing an R-CUT at Wilbanks Road and GA 365. Almagno invited Baldwin Fire Chief Joe Roy and Police Chief Chris Jones to join that discussion. Ahead of their meeting, Roy took the city’s smallest fire truck for a drive through one of the R-CUTs.
“We don’t fit. We jump the curb,” Almagno said.
Growing city. Growing problem.
As Baldwin expands on both sides of the highway, fire and ambulance crews will make more calls to the area. Almagno said installing more R-CUTS could slow response times. In her view, R-CUTs are not the answer to improving safety on GA 365.
“The problem is the speed of the people already on the highway. That’s what causes a wreck, and that is why these R-CUTs are not solving the problem,” she said.
The R-CUT traffic control device became the ‘go-to’ solution following a wreck on GA 365 in July that killed five people. The accident prompted Habersham County Sheriff Joey Terrell and county leaders to meet with Rep. Anderson, state Sen. Bo Hatchett, and Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) representatives to discuss solutions to prevent fatal accidents at the crossover.
Their conversations resulted in the construction of an R-CUT at the Mt. Zion Road crossover. However, they did not include Baldwin officials in those conversations, said Mayor Almagno.
Baldwin Councilmember Alice Venter said she tried to get GDOT, Sheriff Terrell, and Rep. Anderson to do something earlier when, in October of 2021, a 5-year-old boy and his aunt were killed at that same crossover.
“We started this conversation,” Venter said.
“This is the problem I have. I reached out to Sheriff Terrell and said, “Please, will you have this conversation? He said that they were going to have a conversation with GDOT.” She asked, “Please, can we sit at the table?” To her disappointment, “Nobody contacted me. Sorry, Joey. Love you for a long time, but you did not consult us, and that, I’m disappointed in.”
‘Skin in this game’
Mayor Almagno named the roads in Baldwin that cross GA 365 and said, “We have significant skin in this game.”
Chief Administrative Officer Emily Woodmaster explained that R-CUTs are pre-engineered and, in most cases, pre-designed so that GDOT can install them reasonably quickly.
Almagno added that after conversing with both chiefs, the designs have unintended consequences when making these decisions, but they don’t address the speed on the highway.
She wanted to assure citizens and businesses along GA 365 that the city is working on this issue to ensure public safety can reach them in times of emergency. She stated that the city is not sitting on the issue and is trying to work on solutions for their benefit.
