‘Bypass’ will ruin prosperity

Letter to the editor
Published: July 1, 2008

Our city and county leaders have lost their minds. Both commissions have publicly endorsed construction of a new highway, bypassing — yes, bypassing — Dothan. Traffic flow is lifeblood to any community’s prosperity.

Greater traffic flow means greater sales; greater sales mean more sales and property taxes collected. Less traffic means lower sales and less tax revenue. These are undeniable economic facts. If the proposed Dothan bypass roadway is opened, I predict that traffic counts on U.S. 231 where it leads through Dothan will decrease by 40 percent. Motel room rentals here will decrease by 60 percent.

Retail sales will fall off 30 percent. Predictably, sales tax collections to our city and county will decrease by an unrecoverable 20 percent. Don’t believe me? Take a look at the downtown of Abbeville, the downtown of Brundidge, the downtown of Marianna, the downtown of Enterprise and, as a matter of fact, the downtown central business district of Dothan itself.

Dothan’s central business district has never recovered from the opening of Ross Clark Circle in the late 1950s, when all traffic traversing our city via U.S. 231, U.S. 84 and U.S. 431 was routed directly through the middle of the downtown central business district. But at least when the Ross Clark Circle opened and when bigvolume retail sales moved out to the Circle, those sales were still being made in the city limits of Dothan.

The proposed toll-road bypass, however, will forever erase them and permanently damage our community’s economy. Your taxes will have to be increased. When opened for traffic, this newest Dothan bypass will quickly begin to “dry up” a large portion of Dothan’s prosperity.

Rejoice now, if you wish. But if this roadway opens, it’ll be too late to regain the lost revenue. It’s going to be hard for his elected successors to pay off the money Mayor Pat Thomas has borrowed issuing bonds to buy all those unneeded “play-toy” things which he’s so anxious to spend the money on.

Folks, our community’s dictator-like local political leadership has done the good citizens of this community yet another illadvised injustice. Are they somehow being self-serving, or do they simply lack the intelligence and foresight to know what’s best. More probably, do they really give a hoot?

Fletcher Moore
Dothan