Oops, there seem to be problems with traffic, turn lanes in West Village

Oops,

there seem to be problems with traffic, turn lanes in

West Village

Could it be that the intersection at

Ga. Highway 54 and the new MacDuff Parkway [the West

Village road] will cause traffic headaches right off the

bat?

Now, I would never so much

as suggest that our "Show me the money"

developer friends would ever turn in a faulty design

- far from it. However, I went to the new MacDuff

Parkway (right at Hwy. 54) with my measuring tape, and I

came up with a measurement of 87 feet for the left turn

lane.

Considering the fact that

our Peachtree City leadership is planning to move the

"hard fought for" Wynnmeade Parkway traffic

light to the "it looks like Peachtree City"

intersection at Hwy. 54 and the new MacDuff Parkway, I

figure that this little action is going to force much of

the Wynnmeade subdivision traffic to use our newly

created MacDuff intersection.

When I told this to our

traffic consultant (at the July 10, 2000, traffic

discussion at City Hall) Ryan Elliott of Dames &

Moore, he said in part that "our assumption would

have been that these turn lanes would have been 150 feet

or 200 feet, whatever was appropriate for that

development. We did not know at the time that they where

only going to be 80 feet long."

Our traffic consultant Ed

Ellis of Dames & Moore also said in part that

"we'll go back and look at it, and if it's not

right, we'll make a recommendation to the city." I

checked the tape recording of the minutes of that meeting

to make sure I got my facts right.

I guess we will have to

just wait and see if they (Dames & Moore) do that. In

the meantime I'm for hire.

In conclusion, maybe we

just might have a congestion problem waiting to happen

from day one. Now, I feel it is my civic duty to point

out that our developer friends paid for the construction

of the "it looks like Peachtree City" MacDuff

Parkway. Will they do the same if that intersection needs

to be improved early on, or will the taxpayers pay for

the improvements? You know, I just don't like taxes.

Why not design the

intersection for the long-haul (20 years) the first time?

Judging from the fact that

our developer friends have not signed their Home Depot

development agreement with the city to date, I guess we

will have to do what developers always want us to do:

"Just trust us."

I close with that lovely

saying that we always often hear, " Peachtree City

- you'll love to call it home." I hope.

James Melvin Ewing

Peachtree City

[Editor's note: Ewing is

a former chairman of the Peachtree City Water and Sewer

Authority and a former city council candidate.]