" Mr. Wallace, your "Letter" will do absolutely no good here, & will fall on deaf ears.

May I suggest you try sending it, or giving a call, to the "Big Wigs" in Bentonville, Arkansas.

You ought to see/hear all of the "red tape" the management has to go through, with Bentonville, just to get those nasty potholes filled, from semi-trucks using their parking lot as a truck-stop, let alone the ones who keep McDonalds going. "

" That's what we need, another stop light on 16.

Rotty, maybe Wal-Mart just needs to make their sign bigger, you know, the one that says NO TRUCKS. "

" I agree medic, with both of your statements. "

" Just slow down,whats your big hurry walmart isnt going anywhere. "

" After working in New York City for several years, driving down Charleston avenue in Mattoon and Lincoln in Charleston, is a breeze. How many times do you have to sit through a green light three or four times in either town? "

" There wouldn't be another stop light added. The writer is saying just put an entrance only lane into Wal-Mart from the eastbound lane only. That way the only ones entering from the east side would be those coming from the east. Since the light for left turns off 16 coming from the east is so short, it would help those leaving Wal-Mart turn left on Dettro to get to the highway. "

" I can remember when Rt.16 was nothing more than a 2 lane country road that lead to the airport,and Charleston.Yeah that's just what we need is another dam stop light. "

" Kamfong & Harry Potter - GREAT comments, and I concur, having lived in Cook and Dupage Counties previously. I still get amused when people think we have a traffic problem here. "

" I lived in the St. Louis for a year, and I'll bet you're just like me. You scream at every slow driver, saying, you wouldn't do that in the city. Right Harry? "

" Perhaps they will put down an extra wide sidewalk, and with all the people walking to and from walmart, the congestion at the drive by Mcdonalds will reduce significantly.

It's designed better than Charlestons. Our bottle neck is often due to everyone wanting to use one exit. There are 2 more on down the lot. Both less likely to be as risky, or delaying for making sure others mean what they signal, or properly signal their intentions at all.

My suggestion would be to close the north drive. All the pedestrians with the new sidewalks, will make the parking lot use by cars so much less, they could add a permanent green house for their garden center.

Someone better get ahead of the curve, and stock up on little red wagons, and other pedestrian friendly grocery getters, and a handy place to secure them, while shopping. Might have stuff from the mini mall, home depot, aldis and staples, and want some walmart bargains in the same trek. Sure some pedestrians might walk home between each store, but some might not have time to make 4 trips back and forth to shop on foot.

Need a rickshaw with a locking marine cooler for a seat, and one of those yard cart beds in the back. Put some solar yard lights, bicycle signals on it, and spinner hub caps, and watch the heads all turn in envy. Heck skip pulling the thing and make it so it hitches to a mountain bike, or go on and build the grocery getter pedal car of your dreams. When they get the sidewalks to rural king and lake land done, traffic in town will be nill. Might need to know how wide of a path they plan to pave, so the squeeze horns aren't clearing more of a path than they need to. Could probably rig up an old air compressor, small tank, and some air horns. Might as well work in an alternator, battery, and a bose system, to plug your ipod into. Stretch it out, beef it up, and pick up the pedestrians on the way to and from, for a small fee. Better have some good shocks and puncture resistent tires for traversing sidewalks and slag roads through town, but the pedal tram could be one heck of a moneymaker at bagle fest, and several other venues. Add a few more pedals, and segment the thing, can only operate as much capacity as you need or don't. "

" Mike P

I agree on Charleston Wal-Mart, that is the worst designed entrance and exit I have ever seen in my 52 years. The guys who designed that one must have been on acid. Not to mention that some of the lanes are 2 lane, some are 1 lane and the crazy parallel handicap spaces and from the outer drive most of the entrances are at about a 32% angle. "

" But it probably looked great on the stand alone computer generated model. Its almost like whoever designed that configuration, has never driven a car. Sure defies logic driving in and out of it. Hard to believe there were people with engineering degrees involved in many civil planning projects. "

" Mike P custom rickshaws,Humm not a bad idea. "

" medic57 wrote on Apr 30, 2009 11:48 AM:

" I lived in the St. Louis for a year, and I'll bet you're just like me. You scream at every slow driver, saying, you wouldn't do that in the city. Right Harry?


Yup, I'll admit it, I find myself doing the same thing on occasion. "

" Being an engineer doesn't make you smart. Look at Fighter Jets, people with PHD's design them, people with Masters Degrees build them, People with BA's fly them, and people with GED's maintain them, and of course,,,,,,, all built by the lowest bidder. "

" Or we just get rid of wal mart all together. "

" medic57 wrote on Apr 30, 2009 3:29 PM:
" Mike P

I agree on Charleston Wal-Mart, that is the worst designed entrance and exit I have ever seen in my 52 years. The guys who designed that one must have been on acid. Not to mention that some of the lanes are 2 lane, some are 1 lane and the crazy parallel handicap spaces and from the outer drive most of the entrances are at about a 32% angle. "

----I think the Mattoon County Market has the worst parking arrangement of all. In rain or in snow, or if you can't take the sun...don't go there for pete's sake!

I wonder if all the employees take the closest spots because they are always filled, and it's just such a poor design to make everyone walk.

You do enough walking inside, shouldn't be forced to do it outside too. And many older folks can't. "

" Given walmarts track record of logevity in the same building, they migh be packed up before the cement is dry on that TIF land sidewalk the city wants to run. Better think up some ideas for what would be good use of two super centers, so when they build one super duper center somewhere between Mattoon and Charleston, we aren't stuck with a couple more under utilized retail monstrocities. "

" The trucks are not causing the big pot hole that keeps coming back right at the entrance. There is something under the road that is allowing sinking, maybe a broken sewer that is washing it away from the bottom. Go look at it right now, it is spider webbing and starting to sink right now. Now of course the trucks helps it along. "

" As long as we're putting in double wide sidewalks to Wal-Mart, let's take it on out the the movie theater. When the family is done at the movies, they can shop at the Wal-Mart store. With everyone carrying the bags of food, they'll only have to make one trip. Think of the gas saved if the sidewalk went out to the airport, you know, the one that we pay for, but don't use. Everyone could walk to the fireworks display. I'm personally looking forward to riding out there in the rickshaw taxi. I wonder if the rickshaws will be made in China? "

" They should start a custom rickshaw factory like Mike Ps Idea. "

" Here is another fine piece of engineering, dad and I were taking a ride one night and say Kurt Stretch working on the storage building in front of the ballparks on 6th street, dad ask him if he had run into anything unusual while digging there, Kurt said thay ran into pipes of some kind. Dad said, figures, this is where the crapper was on the New York Central Rail Yards. "

" Rohn Gordon, Those sink holes are commonly called Ghetto speedbumps. "

" Bike frames that get chopped and welded to build them, could probably have asian roots. But someone at lake land, Eastern, or a just welding shop, could recycle large portions, retro fit others, and run it through the local powder coat place. Both cities have hundreds of old bikes for auction every so often, so big parts of the input cost can be managed. They have disk brakes for bikes now, so one of the biggest issues with bigger pedal contraptions are less than they used to be. Add some kind of weighted inertia mechanism to the drive and multi speed gears, it might be a fairly capable pedal commuter. "

" Raider 65 I think Medic 57 answered the question you ask about china building rickshaws, in his/her post Apr.30 at 6;56pm. GOOD post by the way Medic 57. "

" There are two real reasons there are pot holes showing up at the entrance near Mc D's on such a regular basis. The first is simply the amount of traffic. The 2nd is that there is not any concrete under the blacktop. "

" It's simple......two "named" businesses are the ONLY ones benefitting from that road, let THEM fix it! Maybe they can get some supplies for repairs from some of the businesses that had to close up when they came to town! "

" Oh yeah, and maybe they can get some "pricedropping" deals on rickshaws where they get all of their other chinese merchandise! :) "

" The 2nd is that there is not any concrete under the blacktop. "


You may be right, but...

If that's the the problem all the asphalt roads not build on concrete would be collapsing too. Why isn't that happening? "

" Its built in the middle of a cornfield,for christ sakes,the field tiles are collapsing. "

" By the way, Mr Wallace, have you considered the farmer's thoughts about his land, between Wally World & the sub-division? "

" The problem really is trucks, trucks weigh a bunch, combine that weight with a turning motion literally shoving the asphalt sideways. Look at 12th and Dewitt, they should have used cement approaches to the stop signs, any idiot knows when trucks stop there is a tremendous forward sliding motion on the asphalt at that point, asphalt is held together with oil, hence the speed bumps righ in front of the stopsigns. Cement would not do this, however, Howell Asphalt puts down that asphalt and then, their trucks tear most of it back up, in effect creating their own supply and demand. Maybe the city should have Walkers fix the problem, then it wouldn't come back. Of course, we are talking about the same city that once had the bright idea to Oil and Chip Dewitt. Luckily when they did that, they hadn't heard of Boiler Slag yet. "

" Walmart was approved as long as there was a buffer between them and Crestview. Building a road between them would violate that buffer. The entrance is failing because it wasn't designed for trucks. The subgrade does not have the structural integrity to handle the weight. It is also to narrow for the trucks. Now you have heavy trucks slamming over the curb onto the underdesigned pavement. I like that they moved the "no trucks" sign back because the truck kept hitting it. They can patch the asphalt all they want, but until they fix the whats underneath or quit allowing trucks through there, it will continue to fail. The walmart parking lot wasn't designed to be a truck stop, yet that is what it is being used for. "

" Kamfong wrote on May 3, 2009 8:39 AM:

Its built in the middle of a cornfield,for christ sakes,the field tiles are collapsing.

Kamfong, do you have ANY idea of what you are talking about? Do you know anything at all about field tiles? Yep, that's what I thought. "

" Wally World has been approved for a new parking lot, in the near future.

Supposedly, a stricter stance against their parking area being used by truckers is to be persued.

Time will tell. "

" Medic 57, You remind me of a scoutmaster I once had,who always tried to hurt peoples feelings,when their ideas didn't jive with his.Are you him? Well if you are you ruined my life.I have an uncontrolable urge to litter and I like to dangerously play with matches now.lol "

" I do agree that Walmart traffic is a mess but before the city spends another dime on road work they need to do something with the bridge over the ditch on Lakeland Blvd near Rudy. It's crumbling quickly and I'm afraid it's going to collapse soon. "

" ErnestT wrote
" It's simple......two "named" businesses are the ONLY ones benefitting from that road, let THEM fix it! Maybe they can get some supplies for repairs from some of the businesses that had to close up when they came to town! "

How do businesses sell supplies for the entrance road, if they no longer exist? Maybe these people should open a double wide sidewalk construction co./Stretch Rickshaw manufacturing plant. Sounds like there's going to be a big demand. "

" Most any time a semi cuts a corner hard, the tandems shuffle sideways, rather than roll through the turn smoothly. Can happen on both the cab and the trailer. Tighter the turns, more likely to do damage. Their lot isn't designed properly for big truck access to mcdonalds or murphys, from any direction.

Eventually they will tire of same spots being constantly repaired, and they will figure out a better solution. Thicker concrete pad in that area, with a concrete section on top, would likely end the rapid return of bone shaking pot holes. Trying to get truck drivers to turn differently to avoid damaging the road, would be like talking to a wall. Send one the bill, and it might begin to sink in. If the folks in charge know trucks are the culprit, and keep patching the damage the same way that was damaged in the first place, it is up to them to beef it up, or enforce no trucks. City street issues fall on city hall failing miserably, and wasting tax dollars, on expensive bandaids rather than proper treatment of the issues. "

" all wal-mart needs is to turn out the lights and close all it's stores. this country and third world nations would be all the better off. "

" http://tinyurl.com/5gc6u8 "

" You're lucky Kamfong, I had a truely terrible first experience with the Cub Scouts. "

" I was told once when an accident occured in Wal-Mart parking lot that nothing could be done because it was on private property. Please dont tell me that repairs to their parking lot are going to be done with "city money". If so, I would LOVE a new driveway, and approach from the potholed street that runs in front of my house! "

" A thicker concrete pad....how about putting a concrete pad in the parking lot to start with. Wal Mart's lot is nothing but blacktop on compacted dirt. The only concrete in that lot is at the truck docks. "

" Seems like both old walmarts have concrete parking lots. This store may be half or more through its life span, so they may be fine with just patching with bandaids every other year or so, to keep their prices so rolled back:) Make sure to bring these issues up, when the county super duper center comes up to be zoned.

Remeber coles county is now diagnosed by experts as resilient, but has a rather high level of people in the lower income brackets.

Walmart can just build 1 big store, in the middle, stop contributing to the high city taxes, kickers, shopping tolls levied at whim, and start shuttle busses to and from both towns, every 30 minutes. Ride there is free, if you have a walmart card with money on it. Ride home is free, only if you have a recipt for xyz ammount of dollars. Plenty of shuttle bus rider parking at what would then be all 4 old walmart locations, in coles county. Super duper centers could be better situated so they can be expanded or modified as markets change, rather than boxed in on all sides, like the first two old walmarts were. They might locate by the bike path, and then those pedal ricksaw shuttles will sure come in handy, for those who forgot to keep money on their walmart cards for the free shuttle bus fare. "

" Mike P I checked with city hall and a peddlers license to run a rickshaw shuttle would interfere with the current livery service in town.May have to partner with checker-top to make this dream a reality,but there goes the profits. "

" What if it was part of a fitness club membership. Interchangable power modules. Pedals, a rowing machine, or an incline tread mill, could power the thing. Could have a marathon of a triathlon, all from the same quadcycle.

Darn bureaucrats, can't even be green through innovative regression of combining concepts, without the man coming down to get his cut.

Suppose every one will have to own their own, to transport their family of 4.2 in one pedal driven grocery getter contraption.

Wonder if we could get a pedaled rickshaw park built. So when they become the next extreme sport platform headed to the olympics, they will have something tested and proven to loosely base the olympic course around. "

" Wonder if we could get a pedaled rickshaw park built. So when they become the next extreme sport platform headed to the olympics, they will have something tested and proven to loosely base the olympic course around. "


Nah, the Pads people would take over. "