Fayette

County officials will continue to meet with state

transportation officials to iron out the details

of an agreement reached last week that would

hasten the widening of Ga. Highway 54 west of

Peachtree City.

County

commissioners last month formally alerted the

Atlanta Regional Commission and state Department

of Transportation that ARC's 25-year

transportation plan didn't place the Hwy. 54

project high enough on the priority list to suit

local officials.

It's

the number one priority locally, said the

commission, and the Coweta County Commission and

Peachtree City Council added their voices to that

chorus.

Last

week, a delegation that included Fayette County

Commission Chairman Harold Bost, Peachtree City

Mayor Bob Lenox and Coweta County Commissioner

Vernon "Mutt" Hunter met with state

officials and secured an agreement to schedule

the project for 2005, five years earlier than the

proposed Regional Transportation Plan had

designated.

The

RTP, if approved by ARC early next spring as

planned, will guide transportation construction

in the Atlanta region through 2025. Approval of

the plan by ARC and by the federal Environmental

Protection Agency would end a moratorium on

transportation projects that has been imposed by

EPA because of alleged poor air quality in the

region.

"We

anticipate that as soon as the moratorium is

lifted and the transportation plan approved, they

will start to move ahead" with construction

of the Hwy. 54 project, Bost told The Citizen

this week.

Officials

in the next week or so will talk with DOT

engineers who plan projects for the south metro

area, Bost said, in an attempt to get agreement

that the first order of business will be

construction of a new, wider bridge over the

railroad tracks on 54 just west of Peachtree

City.

Traffic

going from Peachtree City into Coweta County gets

jammed up as it crosses the bridge, Bost said,

because that's where the highway abruptly narrows

from four lanes to two. And as that traffic backs

up, it creates a jam throughout the intersection

of 54 with state Highway 74.

"We

feel that if we can get that bottleneck relieved,

it's the single biggest problem," said Bost.

Bost

gave credit for working out the agreement with

ARC and DOT to Coweta County's Mutt Hunter.

Hunter, Fayette's former public works director,

has long had a good working relationship with

state DOT Commissioner Wayne Shackleford, Bost

said.

"It's

on the fast track now," Bost said of the

Hwy. 54 project. If officials had waited until

the 25-year plan was approved to push for the

change, he added, "It would have been much

harder to get it done after that."

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