The projects in Fayette County's

latest transportation plan will help Fayetteville residents by diverting

commuters around the city during a.m. and p.m. drive time, according to

Fayetteville Mayor Ken Steele.

The plan, which will be administered

cities for the county's plan is important, he says, to "present

a united front" with regional transportation officials who hold the

purse strings.

"That's where the

money comes in," Steele said, noting that projects put on the Regional

Transportation Plan usually have engineering and land acquisition performed

in the first year of the cycle, followed by construction in the following

two years.

The county can afford to turn

it's attention elsewhere now that Peachtree City is about to have

Ga. Highway 54 West widened and the TDK Boulevard extension built to Coweta

County also, Steele said. The plan to widen Ga. Highway 74 South is also

in the plans for state funding and is therefore out of the equation, Steele

said.

Any transportation project

in the county benefits everyone, Steele noted.

"For example, I have friends

I visit in Peachtree City or I may go to a church function on the south

end of the county," Steele said.

The county's plan calls

for a East Fayetteville bypass and a West Fayetteville bypass which would

actually be located in the county's jurisdiction, Steele noted. The

city gets clogged with drive-time commuters who come from east Coweta

County, Senoia, Meriwether County, Spalding County and parts of Clayton

County, Steele said.

While the bypass roads would

help ease commuters around the city, "We still want folks to come

here and do their shopping and visit their doctor," Steele added.

The catch will be finding the

local funds for the projects in the county's plan, some of which

will need at least a 20-percent match, Steele said. There has been talk

already of a one-cent Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax to fund the

projects, but there's no concrete indication that will be the money

source.

"We cannot build these

roads on the back of property owners so a different funding mechanism

needs to be found," Steele said, adding that he was not opposed to

voters having a say in the matter, which would be a certainty if officials

chose to go the SPLOST route. "... I'm not saying I'm for

it or again' it."

It would be ideal if state

officials could figure out a way to evenly distribute transportation funds

to counties based on their population, Steele suggested.

But the way the transportation

funding process happens now, "there are no easy answers and no quick

answers," Steele said.

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