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.]

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