A group of

Peachtree City residents wants the City Council to remove the traffic

calming devices that have been added to Golf View Drive in the last few

months to slow down traffic.

Curt Wagner,

a representative of the group, said a petition to that effect has garnered

over 700 signatures. Of the families he has spoken to who live on Golf

View, "the vast majority" don't want the traffic calming measures,

he said.

The group will

make a presentation to the Peachtree City Council will meet Tuesday at

7 p.m. at a special called meeting to discuss the issue.

Wagner said

the current traffic calming devices on Golf View, which include multiple

stop signs and two pairs of speed humps, don't meet federal and state

regulations.

"It is

true that there is some speeding on the road," Wagner said, but police

statistics show that over four years, 85 percent of the vehicles traveling

on Golf View stayed under the then-30 mph speed limit.

In addition

to the removal of the stop signs and speed humps, the group also wants

the speed limit brought back up to 30 mph from the current 20 mph limit.

The speed humps

impede the response of emergency vehicles to an area that serves over

350 homes, Wagner added.

"You are

jeopardizing the safety of 354 families with the speed humps," Wagner

said, saying it is hard for fire trucks to slow down to cross the humps

and then have to accelerate again.

The city originally

installed speed humps that spanned one lane at a time, allowing for a

"gap" that could be used by emergency vehicles. But motorists

would swerve through the gap to avoid the speed humps, city officials

reported.

The speed humps

were also raised at the request of city staff to combat sport utility

vehicles whose heavy duty suspensions allowed them to traverse the speed

humps without slowing down.

The multiple

stop signs add more noise to nearby homes and also cause more pollution

from automobiles, Wagner said.

Speed violators

on Golf View should be addressed by police officers instead, Wagner argued.

The traffic calming devices simply aren't warranted by the national and

state regulations, he added.

"You don't

do it on a political whim and run an experiment in a neighborhood,"

Wagner said.

The group opposing

the traffic calming devices has found there have been no major accidents

on Golf View, either. City officials have been very cooperative in providing

statistics and other information to the group, Wagner added.

Council recently

lowered the speed limit to 20 mph. All the changes came after Golf View

Drive residents petitioned council earlier this year to help slow down

traffic on the street, claiming a number of near misses where residents

have almost been struck by speeding vehicles.

The recent

upgrade to the traffic calming measures on Golf View has drawn a protest

from motorists who use the road on a daily basis. Some motorists are honking

in protest as they drive along Golf View, which features two higher speed

humps that extend across both lanes of traffic and several stop signs.

The new traffic

signs on Golf View have even been vandalized, according to city officials.

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