The plan to

put a traffic light on Ga. Highway 54 to serve The Avenue at Peachtree

City is on hold indefinitely.

Meanwhile,

the developer of the massive retail project, Cousins Properties, plans

to use a traffic officer to direct traffic in the area if the traffic

light can't be erected by the time the stores open the end of March.

In any event

that the light isn't up and running by then, the matter could be back

in the hands of the Peachtree City Planning Commission and City Council.

The traffic light was one of several traffic improvements in the area

that were required of the developers for the project to gain city approval.

Marion Waters,

the state traffic operations engineer, said Wednesday that the Department

of Transportation has declined to approve the light for now. Part of the

reason is that the light would be extremely close to the current light

at Hwys. 54 and 74, he said.

Having lights

so close together could cause congestion to occur, Waters said. It could

also cause other traffic problems in the area, he added.

"We'll

watch it for a while," Waters said. "If somebody has to wait

on a secondary road, so be it."

Lisa Simmons

of Cousins Properties said that if the light isn't erected by the time

The Avenue opens, a traffic officer would be used to keep traffic flowing.

Another reason

to hold the new traffic light is the future widening of Hwy. 54, which

would include a median lane in the center, Waters said. If the light was

approved now, it would eventually have to be taken down for that project,

he added.

The decision

to put the approval on hold could change later, however, Waters indicated.

"We have

put it on hold ... and told them to give us more data," Waters said,

adding that the DOT is working with traffic engineers representing the

city and the developer.

The numbers

the engineers originally presented to the DOT were not "terribly

large" but rather on the borderline, Waters said. Those numbers were

also projected estimates, he added, and the DOT wants more concrete numbers.

Other traffic

light changes on Hwy. 54 have been approved by the DOT, including the

light that will be moved from Wynnmeade Parkway to MacDuff Parkway and

the new light planned for the Planterra Ridge subdivision entrance, which

will mainly serve the entrance to the Wal-Mart and Home Depot stores.

The DOT has

not issued a final ruling on the "through lane" proposal that

helped RAM Development get the city council's approval for the Wal-Mart

and Home Depot project, said Keith Rohling, district traffic operations

engineer. The DOT needs more information from the city's traffic engineers

to help show that the through lane will improve conditions.

The through

lane would allow one lane of westbound traffic to continuously flow through

the current traffic light at Hwy. 54 and Huddleston Road. That lane would

be separated by a concrete barrier so another lane can be used to accept

westbound traffic from Huddleston Road that will turn left onto Hwy. 54.

Eventually,

both those lanes would merge before the highway reaches into Coweta County.