F’ville OKs 1st of big traffic fixes on Hwy. 85

0
11

The Fayetteville City Council last week gave unanimous approval to an intergovernmental agreement with Fayette County that will use nearly $600,000 in previously collected 1-cent sales tax revenues to add a traffic signal on North Glynn Street at Lafayette Avenue and extend Lafayette to the east to intersect with Church Street some 800 feet away.

That’s a major change about a football field’s length away from the busy intersections around the Old Courthouse Square.

The council last month voted to transmit an intergovernmental agreement proposal for the project to the Fayette County Commission, which commissioners subsequently approved.

“We’ve looked forward to doing this project for a number of years,” Mayor Ken Steele said during the discussion.

City Manager Joe Morton prior to the unanimous vote said he expects the project to move forward quickly.

The Lafayette extension is not the only transportation project designed to mitigate the increasing numbers of vehicles traveling each day through Fayetteville.

A second, more expansive, measure is the proposed Ga. Highway. 92/Hood Avenue/Jeff Davis Connector project. With funding also coming from previously collected 1-cent sales tax revenues, the project would link North Glynn Street area to Jeff Davis through a number of new and existing street segments and roundabouts.

Current plans west of North Glynn Street call for the relocating the traffic signal from Hwy. 92 a short distance south to the intersection with Hood Avenue. West on Hood Avenue just a short distance from North Glynn would be the location of a roundabout that would funnel traffic northeast and northwest onto Hwy. 92.

Motorists at the new traffic signal at Hood Avenue would be able to continue east across the intersection on what is proposed to be an extension of Kathi Avenue that would, via another roundabout, link with North Jeff Davis to the east and with Church Street to the south where it intersects with Georgia Avenue.

Cost estimates for the project are not expected until later in the fall. The city and county will take up the issue once those costs are in.