By CAL BEVERLY
Publisher

I came in late Monday to a Peachtree City Council workshop where folks were talking about the best place to put a commuter rail station. In Peachtree City.

Less than a half mile away, vehicles were stacked in all directions waiting to get through the Grand Central intersection at Ga. highways 54 and 74.

Why hasn't the council already synchronized the traffic lights from Willowbend Road all the way to Wynnmeade and the Line Creek bridge?

The morning traffic on Hwy. 54 backs up from Grand Central all the way past the Fischer Road intersection with Ga. Highway 34 in Coweta County, more than two miles west. I know. I drive it both ways most weekday mornings.

The afternoon traffic is even worse, clogging hwys. 74 and 54 in all directions. And that's before Home Depot and a 24-hour Wal-Mart spill their hordes onto a two-lane road. (Thank you so much, environmentalists who have sued and stopped all state road widening in Fayette County. We're all breathing a lot better in the endless traffic jams.)

Two decades of watching the PTC Council in action have led me to this conclusion: For all their self-proclaimed planning prowess, the PTC officials are mostly just reactors, trying to figure out how to paper over a real problem well after the problem has become apparent to everybody else.

How else to explain Mayor Bob Lenox's grandiose tax-and-spend bond plans to build new buildings, art centers and recreation centers at public expense while our main traffic arteries have become clogged to the bursting point?

Here it is, folks: I'd rather have a smoothly functioning traffic flow system through PTC than 10 new arts buildings. And I suspect, more than a few weary drivers might agree with me.

When is the council going to start dealing with the mundane but so-important issue of making roads better and making life a little more tolerable for the tens of thousands of drivers who need to get places within a reasonable time?

One pitiful explanation is that the whole traffic improvement system awaits final outcome of the Home Depot-Wal-Mart issue. That may take many months, even years. The council has a responsibility to get their heads out of dark places and take care of the needs that are before them at this moment.

The old name for the governing board of Fayette County is the commission of roads and revenues. Roads are a primary government responsibility. The county has an obligation here to its taxpaying citizens. When's the last time you heard a county commissioner talk about the importance of good roads and traffic flow? Something has gone off track here.

One of the first priorities of a municipality is to ensure safe and efficient traffic flow. Why is the council ignoring its clear responsibility? How can our elected officials ignore the overwhelming problem directly in front of them and concentrate instead on city clerk duties and commuter rail boondoggles and ego-enhancing public buildings?

Wake up, ladies and gentlemen of the Peachtree City Council and the Fayette County Commission. You are failing in one of your primary duties, and you don't seem to even realize it.

Do the following:

(1) Do what you have to do to synchronize the traffic lights along the city's major arteries. Do it now, not two months from now, not two years from now. Put that into your capital improvement budget instead of some of the lesser priorities currently on public view.

(2) You council members and the commissioners of roads and revenues get together and plan a widening of Hwy. 54 from Hwy. 74 west into Coweta County, the state and federal money be damned. If it takes a local bond issue to pay for better local roads, then put one on the ballot. And let the enviro-nuts and the state DOT slug it out in la-la-land federal court while we're building expanded lanes to take care of ourselves down here.

Do something, ladies and gentlemen of our local governments. Do something practical and valuable for a change. Build us some roads and smooth out the traffic flow.

Stop reacting with whiny excuses why you can't take care of your local road users. Start figuring out how you can meet our needs.

If you come looking for any kind of bond issue or tax increase for any other purpose before you take care of this most basic of governmental functions, you should be laughed out of office on the next commuter rail.

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