The Valdosta City Council is expected to vote tonight on the city’s master transportation plan, prepared by an outside consultant as a 30-year blueprint for bike, pedestrian, road and highway projects for the next three decades.

Despite months of meetings, there is no discernible difference in the document as first presented to The Times editorial board early this summer and the summary of the plan that was presented last week. Hard to believe that no one had any objections that were taken seriously at the many public meetings, considering the number of rants and calls to the newspaper regarding portions of the plan, including the roundabout at Five Points.

There are other aspects of the master plan that raise questions. One of the most admirable goals is to beautify the corridors into Valdosta to provide welcoming vistas to our citizens and visitors. However, this will only be successful if the telephone poles mere inches from busy city arteries such as Ashley Street are moved underground. Unfortunately, the plan includes no money for moving utilities.

The plan includes the city buying up tens of millions of dollars worth of county land for a potential truck bypass, rather than utilizing the one currently in place. How does the county feel about the city buying land outside the city limits to construct a city road? How do the landowners in those areas feel about having their property potentially annexed into the city?

Despite the good intentions and the aspects of this plan that are desperately needed, it is still unfortunate that all of it is lumped together. Council will apparently have to blanket approve it all, which gives the councilmen no leeway to make judgment calls on the handful of questionable and outrageously expensive proposals.

The bottom line is that we fear this and future councils will be able to rubber stamp a variety of projects without any further public hearings or notices simply because they are contained somewhere within this vast and far-reaching master transportation plan. Creating a vision for the city and its future is admirable and necessary. Creating bypasses, literally and figuratively, around the city and its citizens where they are not needed is both unnecessary and unwarranted.

To the councilmen, when you vote, and if you are truly acting in the community’s best interests, then provide a line-item veto option to the plan; hold public hearings and votes on all projects costing in excess of $10 million; and don’t simply approve a document because it’s presented to you. There is too much money, too much land, and too many unresolved issues to approve it with no chance to alter it later.