The Peachtree City Council will soon vote on a resolution to ask the Georgia Department of Transportation to install a traffic signal at the intersection of Line Creek Drive and Ga. Highway 54.
Before the vote is taken, the council likely will be bombarded with anecdotes, some of which may be untrue. (Not calling anyone a liar; it’s just that memory and perception are tricky things.)
Most of the anecdotes will be offered in hopes of stopping the installation of a light. People who are not traffic engineers will claim that there are already too many lights and that the proposed light would be too close to existing lights. People who are not traffic engineers will say that an additional light will slow traffic.
The same people who claim that a cut-through from the Line Creek development into Planterra would kill children, will now claim that the light isn’t needed even though it could reduce accidents and save lives.
There likely will be renewed calls to close the existing median cut at Line Creek Drive — forcing gasoline tankers and scores of cars, each day, to make U-turns at Planterra or McDuff.
Closing that median cut would likely also require extending the protected left-turn times at those intersections, increasing wait times for everyone on Hwy. 54. Turn lanes might have to be extended — a costly project.
None of the objections to the signal or the median cut are substantiated by the many traffic studies that have been done; many are refuted by those studies.
I urge the Council to make their decision based on facts and not fantasy.
Paul Lentz
Peachtree City, Ga.
