Carrollton Lane solution is a traffic dead end
Commentary by Tom Stauss
Ocean Pines Association Director Pete Gomsak was onto something when he told his colleagues in May that the OPA board of directors has an obligation, whenever possible, to uphold the promises made by the developer of Colonial Village years ago about traffic patterns on Carrollton Lane.
Those promises help preserve the tranquility of the Colonial Village neighborhood, whose residents enjoy limited access to and from Carrollton Lane from Yacht Club Drive. Nearby residents in Mumford’s Landing, however, are marginally inconvenienced by a do not enter sign at the eastern intersection of Carrollton Lane and Yacht Club Drive; they have to take the slightly longer loop of Yacht Club Drive all the way back to Ocean Parkway. Gomsak has clocked the difference at 30 seconds; others have said it’s a 20-second difference, others say it’s even less.
That the Ocean Pines board of directors has even been considering changing traffic patterns on Carrollton Lane for such a minimal time savings borders on the absurd. And yet passions on both sides of the disputed Carrollton Lane have been intense, and both sides have shown up at recent meetings of the board of directors to lobby for their cause.
There are many more residents in the condos and townhouses of Mumford’s Landing than there are in Colonial Village, so a majority-rules attitude on the part of the OPA board could have easily doomed Carrollton’s unique-for-Ocean Pines limited access status.
Gomsak quite properly resisted this majoritarian tyranny, and for that he should be applauded. But Gomsak, too, ran into a dead end when he then suggested a compromise traffic solution inconsistent with his premise.
The principle he invoked should have resulted in a motion to uphold the status quo, with no change at all in Carrollton Lane and the internal two-way traffic patterns that have emerged over time within Colonial Village, only to compress to single-lane egress at the eastern terminus and the infamous no-entry sign. Ingress and egress is possible at the western end of Carrollton Lane near Ocean Parkway.
Instead of endorsing the logical conclusion of his principled stance on behalf of Colonial Village property owners, Gomsak proposed a so-called compromise that not only is guaranteed to please no one, it’s also designed to make a traffic situation much worse than it is, while inconveniencing those very homeowners he said he wants to protect from majority hubris.
The Gomsak compromise is to turn the street into a one-way road eastbound. That means every homeowner who ordinarily exits Carrollton Lane within a few yards of Ocean Parkway would have to travel eastbound down Carrollton Lane almost to the Yacht Club, and then loop back around on Clubhouse Drive before reaching Ocean Parkway.
That would become an enforcement nightmare. Colonial Village residents would likely ignore any traffic signs that force them down Carrollton Lane eastbound. Any general manager or chief of police inclined to order police cars to the neighborhood for stepped-up enforcement should immediately start checking Craig’s List for new employment.
Although not a good solution to a non-existent problem, the two-way, open access solution would have been far better than the eastbound one-way option. For that one to work, though, the OPA would have to fund intersection improvements at both ends of Carrollton Lane, and that kind of expenditure would be intolerable to force on 8400 property owners in Ocean Pines, most of whom would legitimately resent spending money on a non-existent problem, a solution in search of a problem that, at best, might save somebody 30 seconds.
The best that can be said about the Gomsak compromise that passed on a narrow 4-3 vote, is that it wouldn’t involve expensive intersection improvements.
By leaving the Carrollton Lane entrances alone, it’s possible that, over time, traditional traffic patterns would not change all that much, depending on the willingness of Colonial Village residents to flout ridiculous OPA traffic policy. – Tom Stauss
The Gomsak compromise invites a kind of nullification response, and that’s regrettable.
Uploaded: 6/1/2011
