Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve asked several of my Bartow County friends what suggestions they have for improving our fair county. Now in all fairness, almost all of the folks I run with are either conservatives or libertarians, so you won’t see any proposals to raise taxes so the commissioner can build a giant county-owned water slide down Ladd’s Mountain, however some interesting ideas were discussed.

One recurring theme was traffic, and I’m sure the traffic backups caused from the turn lane construction project on Highway 41 have caused this issue to be front of mind. The most common traffic suggestion was to improve the timing of traffic signals. From personal experience I have to agree completely with this one, especially in the Felton Road area and some of the less used intersections in the city of Cartersville. Fortunately, traffic light timing improvements would be very inexpensive compared to road construction projects.

While there were several suggestions for road building or widening projects that are needed (a topic for another day), the one I heard the most concerned the exit ramp next to the hospital taking motorists from U.S. 41 northbound to Highway 411 northbound.

With traffic almost always backed up on 20 from the traffic light at 411 up alongside Storage Key, it can be virtually impossible to cross over to make it to 411. You are literally taking your life in your hands there. Fortunately, a planned project to rework the interchange at 41 and reroute highway 20 will solve that problem. The project has been engineered and is just waiting on state dollars to begin right-of-way acquisition. Of course, plans called for construction to have started in 2008, so we’ll see.

Nothing against the two-wheeled spandex crowd, but a few folks complained about the increased number of bicyclists on county roads, with some not allowing cars to pass, and not obeying the rules of the road. I dare say most share the road, but I’ve also encountered a few who don’t. With several Bartow roads being unofficially tagged as scenic bike routes, I’m sure bicyclists would appreciate having dedicated bike lanes along these roadways, but then we get into the question of where the money would come from.

God bless the folks at Keep Bartow Beautiful, but apparently many residents feel more needs to be done. From people throwing their fast food garbage out of car windows to trash blowing from the beds of trucks to those who think roadsides are the perfect ash can for their cigarette butts, many of Bartow County’s roadways are nasty. I also have a golden rule to never do business with anyone who sticks up signs along right of ways, or tacks signs on trees and utility poles. They are eyesores.

The foreclosure crisis has left a lot of vacant properties in violation of county ordinances and in need of some basic TLC. Maybe the numbers don’t add up, but from the outside looking in it seems you could hire a few more folks to police the litter, signs and abandoned properties problems and the fines generated would pay the salaries.

Some of the recommendations involved improving government efficiency by consolidating some services. Two perfect examples would be fire and water. Currently Bartow County purchases the majority of its water from the city of Cartersville, so why not merge them into one countywide water department? Also, the city and county fire departments overlap each other so wouldn’t taxpayers benefit from combining them?

Of course, if we were really serious about saving money and could lay turf wars aside, we could combine the city and county school systems and eventually consolidate the entire county and its cities into one government. Several Georgia counties have done this over the last 20 years, and it looks like Dalton and Whitfield County are currently making a serious attempt at merging and may be next.

If we did consolidate the county, it would address another concern raised by a few — the lack of traffic enforcement on county roads. The county sheriff’s department doesn’t have the manpower to do this, but under a consolidated government the police departments from our various cities would together form a new county police department, something many of our neighboring counties already have. The sheriff would still be responsible for the jail, the courthouse, serving warrants and other duties, but the police force would handle traffic enforcement and general police actions.

Probably the most expressed concern raised was just a general uneasiness that the county may soon be swamped by rapid growth. Some who are paid the big bucks to study such things see Bartow as the next metro Atlanta doughnut county to explode.

Whatever steps are needed to address some of these concerns, the current bad economy provides the perfect backdrop for our leaders to muster up some courage and make tough decisions.

Follow me on Twitter @chuckshiflett and also check out my statewide columns at: The Backroom Report.