and JOHN

THOMPSON

[email protected]

Way back yonder

before cell phones and the Internet, before DVDs and wars played out live

on TV, it took a good 40 minutes or more to get from the heart of Peachtree

City to the airport.

Downtown? Make

it an hour, in good weather and little traffic.

Back then,

Ga. Highway 74, the "gateway" to Peachtree City, was a meandering

two-lane blacktop winding its way past cow pastures and old cotton fields.

You had to slow to 35 miles per hour inside the Tyrone town limits, past

the Masonic Lodge, the elementary school, the Shamrock Cafe.

In the late

1980s, the highway lords smiled upon western Fayette County, launching

a project to four-lane the road the 12 miles from Hwy. 54 to I-85, and

bypassing the heart of Tyrone altogether.

Thanks to that

fast and direct link to the airport and downtown Atlanta, Peachtree City

boomed in the 1990s. But except for some steady residential growth, Tyrone

remained mostly unchanged. And on the north end of the route, where it

intersects with the freeway, the city of Fairburn was stuck in a permanent

no-growth rut.

Today, as Peachtree

City nears buildout, development along the rest of Hwy. 74 is taking off

at lightning speed. In Tyrone, the town's first large-scale shopping center

anchored by a Publix supermarket is rising from the red clay, and in Fairburn,

fast-food outlets, apartment complexes and gas stations are sprouting

like wisteria at the I-85 intersection.

The growth

isn't all on the north end of town, either. South of Peachtree City, around

the Starr's Mill school complex, the county has rezoned land for shops

and offices, though construction has been delayed. The future of the corridor

concerns Peachtree City Mayor Steve Brown, who recognizes that Fayette

County's economic well-being depends on easy access to the airport and

the interstates.

The highway

bisects the city's industrial park, home to companies like Cooper Lighting

that cite the convenience of Hwy. 74 as top reasons to locate here.

But Brown also

realizes he has little influence on what becomes of the road north and

south of the Peachtree City limits. So he's organized a meeting of leaders

from each of the jurisdictions theroad touches to begin talks on how best

to manage development and maintain traffic flow.

"It may

be much ado about nothing," Brown said. "But I'm trying to at

least get us to work out an agreement before it's too late on how the

road should be developed, what the alternatives are."

Brown recognizes

that such cross-jurisdictional highway talks are usually handled by the

Atlanta Regional Commission, but he said that planning agency is ineffective

when it comes to a local traffic situation.

"They've

proven that 10 counties can't work together to solve a problem on the

local level like this," he said. "What does some official in

Gwinnett or Cherokee really know about a highway in Peachtree City?"

The first meeting

on Hwy. 74 will be this Tuesday at 5 p.m. at City Hall in Peachtree City.

Representatives

from Fulton County, Fairburn, Tyrone and Senoia have agreed to attend.

Fayette County was the only government to decline the invitation, Brown

said.

In a letter

to Brown, Fayette County Commission Chairman Greg Dunn said the county

was very concerned with the Hwy. 74 corridor.

"Our concern,

in fact, moved us to contract with URS Corporation more than a year ago

to perform a comprehensive update to the entire county's transportation

plan," Dunn said.

Dunn expects

to get the consultant's recommendations back in the near future and will

then ask the cities for input.

"While

we appeciate being invited to meet with you about our traffic woes, we

don't believe that our participation in studying the issue is appropriate

at this time," Dunn said.

"I really

don't have any ideas to put forth," the mayor said. "This first

meeting will be just a meet-and-greet, an opportunity to get to know the

players and air some of the concerns."

The meeting

is open to the public. For more information, call the mayor's office at

City Hall, 770-487-7657.

Senoia city

administrator Murray McAfee will be at the meeting and plans to bring

up the issue of a desperately needed traffic light at the Hwy. 74 and

Rockaway Road intersection. "It's just real simple. We need a light

there," he said.

McAfee is coming

to the meeting armed with a recently completed traffic study from Street

Smarts, which outlines the need for a light now.

McAfee has

been working with Peachtree City officials to fund a light at the intersection.

DOT officials have said it will cost $330,000, but that includes four-laning

Rockaway and including turning lanes.

"It's

just ridiculous to think that Peachtree City should pay that much for

that intersection," he said.

Instead, McAfee

favors a simple $60,000 traffic light that Senoia and Peachtree City officials

could work to fund jointly.

McAfee thought

the situation might have been re solved

a few months ago when a developer approached Peachtree City about rezoning

the property. In addition to building a subdivision, the developer had

planned to reroute Rockaway to align with the traffic light at the Publix

shopping center on Hwy.74.

But the Peachtree

City Council unanimously turned down the request. McAfee has learned the

issue will be discussed again by the council in the next month.

Officials at

Tuesday's meeting will also discuss other issues surrounding the busy

highway and try to find a solution to keep from having the highway becoming

gridlocked.

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