Building a connector road from the proposed large grocery store retail space at “The Overlook” to Planterra Way and/or installing a new traffic light at the intersection of Line Creek Drive and Ga. Highway 54 is a no-starter for me.
Traffic study outcomes can vary based on using different variables and interpreting the data in different ways. Just because a proposed traffic study might say a light is needed, shouldn’t we also try to do the right thing by our citizens and neighborhoods?
We cannot burden the residents of Planterra Ridge and Cardiff Park with even more cut through traffic than they already have by allowing a developer to put in a direct connector road and or a traffic light.
At last Thursday’s City Council meeting I heard Councilwoman Fleisch’s proposal in which she quoted a 2008 traffic study actually stating that we need a traffic light at that intersection.
In fact, this traffic impact study not only mentioned the need for a traffic light at that intersection but presented the information in such a way as if to imply that if we did not put in a signal right now, all traffic hell would break loose at any second.
Councilwoman Fleisch even chastised Councilman Dienhart’s traffic proposal at the previous council meeting because he did not consider this same traffic study when he proposed the city not put in a traffic light and to close off the median altogether so nobody could make left turns at that intersection.
Please take a look at this issue using a common sense approach. The 2008 traffic impact report was done by LAI Engineering and was funded by (you guessed it) the developer. Capital City Development was the developer for that site who, by coincidence, wanted a traffic signal at that intersection to drive customers into his commercial development site by stopping the traffic flow on the highway. Again, you can make a model say whatever you want.
Although Councilwoman Fleisch does recommend that we pay for our own independent traffic study, this is a cost the city cannot afford and it would be less expensive to just use common sense and consider what this might do to our neighborhoods rather than how the developers could benefit.
Council has recently voted to spend over $60,000 to study our city departments. Now Fleisch says that we need to spend more taxpayer funds to convince the community that we need a sixth traffic light in a small segment of road to allow major cut-through traffic in our subdivisions.
By the way, I can tell you right now that the proposed traffic light does not meet the GDOT distance standards. There is a reason GDOT has a distance standard: to preserve traffic flow on the highway.
If you don’t want them to jam up the traffic even more on that stretch of Hwy. 54 and ruin our neighborhoods, please let them know. One also has to ask if putting another light at that location will negatively affect your property values.
Josh Bloom
Peachtree City, Ga.
