Sept. 2, 2008 — From now on, anyone making a right hand turn onto Main Street from North Roop Street will be doing so illegally. That’s because the Susanville city council passed a resolution to make South Roop Street between Main Street and Cottage Street a one-way street for southbound traffic.

Public Works Director Craig Platt said the decision to make Roop a one-way street came as a result of the change in traffic flow from the Town Hill project.

The barrier wall was put in the middle of Main Street to help prevent any more dangerous collisions between large vehicles and the building at the bottom of State Route 36.

Incidents like the 1998 Kenworth commercial truck slamming into the back of the Nevada Arms Apartments on Sept. 11, 2007 were among the main reasons for the project.

Many of the city council members expressed confusion toward the public works department for the lack of notifying the public or even the council itself before seeing the resolution to change the street. Councilmember Joe Franco was curious about how the public would be aware of the change.

“As we evolve the design of town hill and make these changes, shouldn’t we come up with some kind of comprehensive listing of what changes were made?”

Platt responded by explaining that the proposed change had been presented at previous council meetings, county board meetings and planning commission meetings.

Councilmember Vern Templeton said he was a little disappointed with the lack of communication. He said he talked with a person living on that section of Roop who had virtually no prior knowledge of the change, particularly when it came to the change in parking spaces along the road.

“Don’t you guys have to have a public hearing, and don’t you have to have an ordinance to change the parking in the direction of traffic on the street?” Templeton asked. “Not many people in this city know about the change of direction on Roop Street. It doesn’t really matter to vote on it now, its already been done.”

District 2 County Supervisor Jim Chapman agreed with Templeton’s comments on communication, but he mentioned this is an issue that has been discussed in relation to the town hill project for the last four years.

“South Roop Street has been an unsafe street for a long time,” Chapman said. “Because of the way the angle parking came out with the long vehicles we have today. The shape of the road doesn’t help either. Trying to negotiate two-way traffic was pretty dicey. I was particularly happy they turned that into a one-way.”

Chapman concluded by saying the city needed to come up with a master plan as to what people should expect in the coming months as far as devising a sensible flow of traffic for the area.

The council unanimously passed the resolution, while asking for more notification from the public works department on future road projects.