2010-02-04

Kyle RR – the last word

I see that Peter K. Chapman has written a letter to our county officials and called it, “An Open Letter.” How funny – if he wanted to write to them directly, he could have sent them a letter through the mail. But, no, it’s back to getting attention about their road through the newspaper. So, I fell compelled to answer his Open Letter.

Once, again, he’s using safety as the factor which is driving the need to pave this road. He mentions that several people feel that the road would be safer paved, even the bus driver thinks it would be safer. So, if the road is paved and the driver drives his bus off the side of the road again, we’ll all know how wrong he was, correct? But, in all fairness, if this road is so dangerous, how come we don’t see accident reports every week in the newspapers reporting all the accidents?

Mr. Chapman said that he doesn’t know why the road was not paved originally. I have no more information than he does, but I would venture a guess that the road’s name explains it – it’s a ranch road!

Possibly, it was originally a road through a ranch belonging to someone named Kyle. After he or she sold the property, either in it entirety or subdivided, the new owners kept the road and lived along it. It’s possible the county extended the road all the way between North Highway 16 and FM 470 and began maintaining it with a grader every so often. In any event, the county decided not to pave the road at that time. Why is unknown and may not ever be known.

Mr. Chapman goes on to say that having emergency and deputy vehicles “traveling on a dirt vs. paved roads makes absolutely no sense” – unless, they hardly ever travel on this road. So, my next question is, how often do they travel on this road?

Overall, I am wondering why the residents who want this road paved don’t approach the county officials with actual facts about the road and its use, and not about their “gut feelings.” I would suppose that county officials have access to the real figures concerning the use, accidents, number of fires and ambulance calls, as well as the cost to pave Kyle Ranch Road. Those statistics – not people’s “gut feelings” – should be used to decide what should be done.

Letting county officials decide is the only thing Mr. Chapman and I agree on about the road.

Richard L. Fuller
Bandera