Friday, February 16, 2001
Friday, February 16, 2001 |
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The Avenue might open without traffic light on Hwy. 54; plans include officer to direct traffic
By JOHN
MUNFORD
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.
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