All over Hall County, construction is taking place on major roads such as Dawsonville Highway, E.E. Butler Parkway and Price Road. These roads are traveled upon by thousands of Gainesville drivers on a daily basis and are all under construction, causing an inconvenience to drivers.

Dawsonville Highway began major construction in 2007, and it is still not completed today. The construction that is supposed to make life easier for a driver is predicted not to be finished for years, causing drivers to take alternate routes to get to their destinations.

E.E. Butler Parkway has been under construction for months as well. Cars attempting to merge on and off of the interstate run straight into a roadblock, unable to continue on.

In a different way, Price Road has been under construction, only the road has been changed. The roads have been paved over one and a half times, leaving the other half of the unpaved road in a ditch of sorts. The first time paved over Price Road was a smooth ride, but then pavers came through and paved it a second time at a higher elevation and left it halfway finished.

Driving toward Dawsonville, the road is a smooth ride, with small rocks of asphalt spraying up at your car. While the other side is three or four inches farther down with parts of the road that have started to be paved, but stopped at that point.

I believe that construction is not something that benefits the community; it causes traffic and can be hazardous. If construction were to be completed sooner, it would not be as much trouble, but until that happens, it is an inconvenience to drivers.

Rachel Eggers

Do you like gas prices? I know I do not. I drive a truck everyday and it drinks the gas. So I went to a local gas station and interviewed some people.

I asked Abbie Hammer of Gainesville several questions and asked for her opinion on gas prices. She said she owns both a gas-guzzler and a gas-saver. She and her husband drive about 65 miles per day per car to work and back. That’s about $120 per week on gas. She said that’s about $480 per month.

I asked her for her input on the rising gas prices. This was her comment: "The value of a dollar is decreasing, therefore the government should not be allowed to inflate the price of daily used products such as gas, food, or items that deal with personal care. Instead jack the prices up on things like tobacco products, movies and other luxury items."

She also stated that "the people of the United States (referring to the state boards and the government) should pull together and lower prices on certain consumer goods so gas would not be such a problem."

David Cody

Gas prices have slowly started to rise to an all-time high. This not only affects adults, but young adults that are in high school. For the ones that do have a job, it takes about half a paycheck, if not more, to amount to the price of gas.

It’s not as if we are out driving around, but going to work, even to school, kills gas in the car. This limits the things that we do on weekends, such as going to the movies or going to the mall.

Now, if you take that into consideration, then you can look at the working people and places. The less people come to buy, the more people will get fired or laid off due to the lack of sales.

Gas has risen to a point were people are thinking of finding other ways to get around by carpooling, biking or walking. Others, who have a great distance to cover, have looked into buying a totally different car, such as a hybrid.

As prices continue to rise, will the economy give into their need of gas and continue buying or will we start to refuse the price?

Economy, jobs in crisis

Are you currently employed? Working 40 hours a week? Do you get a minimum of $12 an hour? You should consider yourself lucky, because the unemployment rates are increasing more each day.

Gainesville citizens have lost roughly 1,440 jobs in the past two months. That’s a 1.9 percent decrease. What is there to do? More and more employees are getting laid off or receiving unwanted pay cuts. Due to these pay cuts, families will lose out on money for food, bills and gas.

The economy is bad enough as it is. There are people who need better paying jobs, but they can’t get them due to the fact that the economy is so low.