The Fayette County Board of Commissioners’ support for the state’s widening project involving McDonough Road and Hwy. 54 on the east side of Fayetteville has not wavered – at least, not officially.
A resolution brought up at the July 23 regular meeting by Commissioner Steve Brown failed to pass due to a 2-2 vote. Brown wanted the board to ask the Georgia Department of Transportation to stop the project, and while Commissioner Randy Ognio agreed with him, Chairman Charles Oddo and Commissioner David Barlow did not.
Brown’s resolution noted “no demand for the projects from Fayette citizens and the considerable costs and inconvenience to the taxpayers.”
The board took public comment and deliberated on the issue for about an hour, with Brown continuing to hammer home his point that the project will provide little if any help for the county’s residents while pouring in a great deal of additional traffic from outside the county.
“Beware of this,” he said. “When you add capacity, volume meets capacity.”
Brown brought up numerous projects in other parts of metro Atlanta where he said traffic capacity was increased but it did not solve traffic problems; rather, it made things more difficult for local residents.
He used Peachtree City as an example, citing the changes on the west side of the city since improvements were made to Hwy. 54. Many parcels of land just across the Coweta County line were rezoned for large-scale retail development and traffic around the Hwy.54/Hwy 74 intersection is often at a standstill because of the overall increase in volume.
Brown began making his case by displaying a 2007 map which showed some regional road plans. After the Outer Perimeter project was scrapped more than a decade ago as being cost-prohibitive, Brown said, state officials began looking at an alternative, which was to convert existing state highways into a kind of singular outer loop on the edges of the metro Atlanta area. He said this initiative is already underway in sections across the region.
Pinpointing a portion of the map that included Fayette County, Brown said that state officials are not certain what they want to do here. He noted that downtown Fayetteville will catch the largest portion of the traffic overflow, and the highway there cannot be widened because of the historic buildings and other structures already in that area. Brown repeatedly stated that downtown Fayetteville would suffer the most from a traffic standpoint, and its businesses would suffer as a result.
“Many of our small businesses here in Fayetteville are making a comeback,” he said. “The last thing you want to do is make it impossible to get there.”
Brown said he asked Atlanta Regional Commission officials what they planned to do and they admitted they didn’t know for certain, although it was suggested that the traffic on the west side of Fayetteville might be routed up Veterans Parkway.
“That would be an absolute disaster,” said Brown.
Oddo said that while he understood some of Brown’s concerns, traffic has been “choking” on those two roads for some time and they are well past time to be four-laned. He also said he was “baffled” by Brown’s comment that there is no citizen demand for the road, saying that idea was subjective and wondering how the conclusion was reached. “I have spoken to plenty of people who would like to see it widened,” he said.
Referring to recent data which shows more than 13,000 vehicle trips per day on McDonough Road and 22,000 per day on Hwy. 54, Oddo said these projects are not being done in a vacuum and must be considered in light of other projects such as the East Fayetteville Bypass which is in the works. He added that preventing the efficient flow of traffic would “stifle the county.”
Oddo used the recent decisions regarding the tunnel/roundabout discussion near Pinewood Studios and the budget deliberations that involved the employees’ cost-of-living adjustments as examples of making smart decisions using available county funds.
“Now we are asking the state to stop a project worth about $60 million and there is no guarantee that money will be used here,” he said. “We all pay taxes. If this is the process, we need to use it to make sure our money is spent here.”
Barlow called Public Works Director Phil Mallon, whom he identified as a certified traffic engineer, to the podium and asked him several questions about the project, as did Brown. Mallon concluded that he felt widening the roads would be in the best interest of the county.
“By rejecting these projects, you are guaranteeing three problems,” said Mallon, referring to traffic trouble in three separate areas. “We still have a big problem downtown but we are correcting two problems.”
Brown brought up specific examples in Cobb, DeKalb and Gwinnett counties of corridors that were formerly known as shopping meccas but are now decimated because leaders kept increasing traffic capacity until they were overrun.
“I wouldn’t do this anywhere no matter how much you paid me, because it would be disastrous,” he said, generating applause from some in the audience.
Ognio said it is simply not a good time for this project and that some other things need to happen first. “If you widen those roads, the center of Fayetteville is going to take the brunt of this,” he noted.
Ognio seconded Brown’s motion to adopt the resolution and after some more debate, mostly between Brown and Oddo, the chairman called the vote and it was 2-2.
In other business:
A rezoning request from A-R to R-75 for 10.56 acres fronting on South Jeff Davis Drive was tabled so that the applicant could return to the board in a month with some possible changes to his plans.
The proposal was to have four separate lots with access to South Jeff Davis Drive, but members of the audience who live in the vicinity of the property, as well as some commissioners, expressed concerns about traffic safety under those conditions.
Brown was prepared to deny the request for these reasons and made a motion to do so but it died for lack of a second. County Manager Steve Rapson suggested tabling the matter and the board decided to do that.
A $28,000 change order with Southeastern Pressure Grouting, Inc., for additional grout-fill of the Lake Peachtree Spillway was approved unanimously. This is to be done while the lake is currently drained for dredging. The county has an intergovernmental agreement with Peachtree City that defines various maintenance responsibilities and makes water from Lake Peachtree available to the county.
John Culbreth was approved unanimously to fill an open seat on the county’s Planning Commission. His term will expire at the end of 2016. The vacancy was created when Bob Simmons resigned after moving to a neighboring county. Culbreth resigned his position on the McIntosh Trail Community Service Board to accept his appointment to the Planning Commission.
A rezoning request from A-R to R-70 for 1.96 acres fronting on Flat Creek Trail was approved unanimously.
