The Tyrone Town Council Thursday night on a 3-2 vote approved an intergovernmental agreement with Fayette County to conduct an engineering study relating to intersection and road improvement on Tyrone-Palmetto Road from Ga. Highway 74 to the Coweta County line. Funding for the $30,000 study will come from existing one-cent sales tax (SPLOST) funds.
In assessing potential intersection and road improvements, city manager Richard Newbern said the SPLOST-funded scoping engineering study would include proposed intersection and traffic flow improvements along Tyrone-Palmetto Road from Hwy. 74 to the Coweta County line.
Though the town will be responsible for any costs that exceed the $30,000 price tag, Newbern said the study is not expected to exceed a cost of $16,000-17,000.
Voting to approve the study were council members Tracy Young and Eric Dial and Mayor Don Rehwaldt.
Voting in opposition to the motion to the engineering study were council members Gloria Furr and Ken Matthews. While both said they agreed that traffic issues exist on Tyrone-Palmetto Road, Matthews said nearby property owners could be affected by the results of the study. Furr questioned that, even with the study and potential road improvements, those improvements would end at the Coweta County line.
“Where is the traffic going?” Furr asked of the approximately one-half mile distance to the I-85 Collinsworth Road interchange that would ostensibly remain a two-lane road.
There is no current funding for any improvements that might come from the study. Improvements to the roadway, along with several other potential transportation projects affecting Tyrone and a large number of others affecting all of Fayette County, are tied to an upcoming submission to the Regional Transportation Roundtable. The RTR will review, and eventually approve, some of the projects submitted from member counties of the 10-county Atlanta Regional Commission to be included in the mid-2012 referendum that would impose a one-cent transportation sales tax to fund the projects.
