On Thursday, Dec. 1 at 10 a.m., it took me 15 minutes to drive from MacDuff Parkway to City Hall, a distance of two miles. That’s an average of 8 miles per hour (mph). Most of those 15 minutes were spend trying to turn left from MacDuff onto Ga. Highway 54, and then sitting in stop-and-go traffic held up by the signal light at the infamous Green-T intersection.
Heck, my car idles faster than 8 mph. I don’t expect to be able to go 45 mph and have green lights all the way, but 8?
I had plenty of time to think on the history of that intersection. It was approved by the City Council under pressure from the developer. Apparently the majority believed that Peachtree City really needed another fast chicken place, a great honkin’ gas station and convenience store, and a bunch of retail outlets that would create a plethora of minimum wage, part-time-without-benefits jobs.
(In fairness, Mr. Prebor was not on council at the time and Mr. Imker, who was on council, spoke against a signal light at that intersection, and voted against it twice.)
The great irony is that the Green-T intersection is a “split-signal” intersection, just the kind of intersection that was being railed against at the same time this one was approved. (The Planterra/Hwy. 54 intersection and the Huddleston/Hwy. 54 intersections are examples of split-signal, meaning the Hwy. 54 traffic has a red light while first one cross-street and then the other gets a green.)
The Green-T signal is red for eastbound Hwy. 54 traffic first to allow left turns from the gas-station-side of the intersection and stays red after that to allow left turns from Hwy. 54 westbound into the gas-station-side.
It’s no wonder that traffic is often backed up to Line Creek itself (the county line) or farther. It’s no wonder that it took me 15 minutes to travel two miles on Hwy. 54.
I encourage the current council to consider a new city motto: “Peachtree City, Plan to Stay—in Gridlock.”
It’s probably too late to change this. It may not be too late to address the real source of traffic problems on Hwy. 54. The solution isn’t wasting $8 million on fancy lane changes at the Hwy. 54/Hwy. 74 intersection. The solution is a new, convenient east-west passage through or around Peachtree City.
Paul Lentz
Peachtree City, Ga.
