At least consider the possibility

If the U.S. 64 Task Force is serious about alternatives to moving graves in Oakdale Cemetery, it should insist that Department of Transportation engineers look at the school traffic rerouting options that several letter writers and many others including us have suggested.

One version of the plan would direct cars from U.S. 64 down Whitted Street to Ninth Avenue to Hendersonville Middle and Hendersonville Elementary schools.

Prince Street would be one-way south instead of north during morning dropoff and afternoon pickup, allowing traffic to return to U.S. 64. Only right turns would be allowed onto U.S. 64.

Another version would route traffic onto Whitted to Ninth past the schools and then back onto U.S. 64 west of the cemetery, providing a road could be cut there.

Maybe another traffic pattern would work better. Maybe no alternative to grave relocation is practical and affordable. But before spending $1 million or more to move 175 graves, the task force ought to at least demand an evaluation of other options.

If the task force's first meeting is any indication, it doesn't look promising. Stephen Stansbery, the consultant the city hired to work with the task force, outlined three options for the panel, none involving rerouting traffic.

Stansbery, of Charlotte-based Kimley Horn & Associates, said the task force can endorse the DOT proposal to move the graves so it can widen U.S. 65 through the cemetery to three lanes. Or it can recommend leaving the road alone except for limited turn lane additions, or it could recommend the city "live with the road as it is."

At least Stansbery acknowledged the third option "might be difficult for DOT to swallow."

Not to mention motorists who have to negotiate a stretch of road that is becoming more and more congested.

Regardless of what decision is made about the road through the cemetery, DOT ought to proceed with three-laning U.S. 64 east of the cemetery. That part of the road has needed work for years to alleviate congestion caused by people trying to get to Pardee Hospital and the many medical offices in that area.

But the seeming determination of the DOT and the city to ignore suggestions to look at the traffic pattern to the schools is disturbing.

If letter writers and ordinary citizens can draw up plausible alternative traffic patterns, there's no reason traffic engineers can't at least see if rerouting traffic would avoid the outcry that moving graves is sure to provoke.