Feedback Sought on North/South Connector

Experts met with residents last night at the Sonora Elks Lodge to discuss the feasibility of a North/South Connector.

Public Outreach Coordinator Judith Buethe says the goal´s pretty straightforward: “To relieve the congestion in downtown Sonora. And we want to design the bypass in a way that´s going to meet the needs of this community.”

And project engineer Dave Melis is one of the project engineers… and described a few basic specifications for the Connector.

“A local roadway, the maximum grade on the roadway would be a 10-percent grade, 35-mile-per-hour design speed, two-lane road. That´s how it´s designed as a part of our study,” he said.

Melis also spoke to the crowd at last night´s meeting. He says their design software allows them to specify impacts to the community… and then look for ways to solve the problems.

“If it´s an impact that we can assign a dollar amount to, we can plug that into the computer and let the computer decide if its cheaper to go ahead and have the impact and pay for it, or if it´s cheaper to route around that impact,” Melis explained.