City of Madison

Beautiful downtown Madison is a jewel. There are many lovely storefronts and businesses that are a tribute to native, long time and new residents of the wonderful community. Sadly there are several buildings, all owned by the same family, that have varying degrees of neglect and deterioration and some of those issues affect the potential health and safety of others.

The old hardware store buildings on the east end of Main Street, adjacent to the owner's restaurant, Bandito Burrito, and the old Humphrey Hughes Drug Store building a few store fronts away, also on Main Street, and the pitiful old metal buildings behind Main Street and on Martin Street have far too long been an eyesore and an insult to the Madison community.

Even with all the Phase I addition of new store front buildings, new parking, new landscaping, new lighting, etc and the long awaited Phase II having already begun, the old buildings remain an eyesore, a safety hazard, and frankly inexplicable.

When asked about it months ago, one of the owner's stated: "IT'S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!"

I take exception...the obvious decline of a precious and irreplaceable downtown main street IS the business of all who live and work in Madison.

I would hope that public pressure can be brought to FORCE the City of Madison Mayor, City Council, City Planning, City Zoning, etc leaders will step up and make the Anderson family repair these buildings to improve safety, restore them to reasonable appearance and maintain them on an ongoing basis or force them to sell the properties or take them by legal action.

It simply must be addressed NOW!

If you agree, please contact the City of Madison and demand they do their job!

organic foods

Please evaluate the safety of this power line pole structure. The top portion is leaning and is splintered halfway through. It is located between the Arbys and Hardee on Highway 20. Thank you.

Zierdt Road has become a major thoroughfare between the Arsenal gate at Martin Road and Madison, Research Park and western Huntsville. The traffic in the afternoon can back up almost a half-mile from the light at Madison Blvd. This road needs to be widened to, hopefully, 4 lanes. Take the opportunity to add bike lanes as well.

Pie-in-the-sky wish for an Ikea...DOES make sense to have it off of I-565, close to I-65.

We need more/better burrito places. I love Chipotle Mexican Grill and it's different from other options around here.

Going northbound on Shelton Rd after just having crossed Madison Blvd, about half of the vehicles are attempting to immediately turn left into the gas station or Publix parking lot. Due to the southbound traffic on Shelton, these vehicles usually have to wait for some extended amount of time causing northbound traffic to stop abruptly and back up into the Madison Blvd intersection.

This area needs to be investigated and left turns either need to be prevented with road barriers or enabled by a left turn lane.

We desperately need a traffic signal at the intersection of Balch and Gillespie. As the two new developments directly adjacent to this intersection fill out, the traffic situation will only worsen. The existing 4 way stop is woefully inadequate and causes confusion, delays, and will lead to accidents. We aren't in the "country" any more, and it's time to upgrade this intersection to meet today's reality.

Build a world class zoo/animal rehabilitation center

Birmingham has an excellent zoo that sees almost half a million visitors.

We need better grocery stores on the West side!