Fayetteville citizens attending an Oct. 4 town hall meeting heard Dan Davis of Integrated Science and Engineering provide the details of the Hood Avenue/Ga. Highway 92/North Jeff Davis Drive realignment project expected to get underway in 2013. Funds to pay for the $9 million project have long been collected and are awaiting the final right-of-way acquisitions.
Residents at the meeting got an update on the expansive Hood Avenue/Hwy. 92 realignment project that will link Hwy. 92, North Glynn Street and Hood Avenue on the west to Kathi Avenue and North Jeff Davis Drive to the east.
The project will relocate the traffic signal at Hwy. 92 and North Glynn Street a short distance to the south at Hood Avenue. A large roundabout will connect Hood Avenue to Hwy. 92 on the west side of Glynn Street. Davis said a mini-roundabout will be located at the point that Hwy. 92 continues to North Glynn Street where the current traffic signal is located.
The roundabout connecting Hwy. 92 and Hood Avenue will be located approximately 400 feet from North Glynn Street and will be quite large. Vehicles passing through the roundabout on the way to North Glynn Street will find a total of five lanes of roadway. Two of those lanes will be right-turn only, one will cross North Glynn and onto the Hood Avenue extension while a fourth will be designated for left turns. The fifth lane will be designated for traffic coming from the east side of North Glynn onto Hwy. 92
The project also includes extending Hood Avenue east across Glynn Street along the south side of Hudson Plaza where it will link with Kathi Avenue by way of another roundabout east of Hudson Plaza, and on to Jeff Davis Drive to the east. Still another project component includes extending Church Street from where it currently ends at Georgia Avenue. The new extension will tie in with the Kathi Avenue roundabout.
A part of the project includes the removal of the the smaller, southernmost Hudson Plaza building positioned perpendicular to North Glynn Street and situated across from Hood Avenue. That extension will provide the link to Jeff Davis Drive.
Davis said the project previously received approval of the Ga. Dept. of Transportation. DOT currently favors the use of roundabouts rather than traffic signals wherever applicable, Davis added.
“Traffic lights increase the pressure for adjacent areas to become commercial,” Davis said. “Roundabouts help areas to stay residential.”
Right-of-way acquisition for the Hudson Plaza property is expected to be complete soon and will be followed by the acquisition of the remaining 17 parcels needed for the project. Affected in the acquisition are a total of three residences that will have to be removed. Two of those are rental properties and one is owner-occupied.
Overall, the project is meant to diminish traffic accidents at Hood Avenue and Hwy. 92, relieve traffic congestion in the Glynn Street/Ga. Highway 54 area, improve the traffic flow through the downtown area, relieve traffic congestion on Georgia Avenue near the post office and improve traffic safety. The new configuration is projected by DOT to mitigate the traffic flow through 2032, Davis said.
The goal is to begin the project in the first part of 2013, Davis said. Once initiated, the large project is expected to take 18-24 months to complete.
The project carries an estimated price tag of $9.1 million, with $7.8 million coming from previously collected local 1-cent sales tax revenues.
