AHOSKIE – As the Roanoke-Chowan area’s largest town as well as the region’s most visited retail destination, the town of Ahoskie has its share of traffic and parking problems.

In an effort to smooth out those “good” problems, members of the Ahoskie Town Council have agreed to commission a transportation planning study.

“The mayor and the town council have been discussing the parking issue on Ahoskie streets for several meetings and at one point asked (town) staff to look into this issue and make some proposals,” Ahoskie Town Manager Tony Hammond said.

“After looking into this issue, it is felt that the town staff does not have the expertise to make appropriate recommendations on parking and traffic flow to the council without supporting data,” Hammond added.

Ahoskie Council members looked over two options, both from The Wooten Company who serves as the town’s engineering firm. One was for Transportation Mapping (with a price tag in the $8,500 range) and the other was an estimated $4,600 study entitled Transportation Planning.

On a motion by Councilman O.S. “Buck” Suiter, the council approved the least expensive of the two studies.

“Either one will help us smooth out our traffic and parking problems,” Hammond said.

Councilman Ronald Gatling wanted to insure that the study would involve all Ahoskie streets, to which Hammond replied, “yes.”

The Transportation Planning study by Wooten Company officials will involve one site visit to note general parking conditions, traffic flow and operation of traffic signals. Utilizing the data obtained from the site visit, Wooten Company engineers will recommend possible improvements for detailed study. These improvements may include changing the number of lanes, general safety improvements, identification of intersections for detailed level of service analysis, general parking revisions and identifying areas in need of a detailed parking analysis.