Wednesday, July 24, 2002
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Wednesday, July 24, 2002 |
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City looking at Pine Trail traffic By MONROE ROARK
Fayetteville officials are looking at a possible redesign of the Pine Trail Road intersection to combat the traffic problem there, but some neighboring residents think the city's solution will make things worse. Many people in Fayette County and the surrounding area would need a road map to find Pine Trail Road, even though they drive on it several times a week. That's because it's the way out of Office Depot or Barnes & Noble for most shoppers, as the road splits those two popular retail developments directly across from Fayette Pavilion. It has an unusual design that has likely caught many motorists off guard. The road is currently designed to keep cars from entering Barnes & Noble or Ruby Tuesday via a left turn off Pine Trail. A right-in, right-out configuration exists there, making it relatively easy to exit those establishments. Two signs warn approaching traffic about this situation, with instructions to enter the Uptown Square shopping center directly from Ga. Highway 85, even if that means making a U-turn at the stop light when coming from the north. But many motorists ignore those signs and, when finding themselves on Pine Trail, simply turn around in residents' driveways just beyond the shopping center. "Driver expectation is the problem," said City Engineer Don Easterbrook at last week's City Council meeting. "People enter Pine Trail from Hwy. 85 because they think they can turn left into the shopping center. The warning signs placed at Hwy. 85 have not prevented this." The original development agreement with Concordia Properties stipulated that the city would look at the intersection after the development is 80 percent leased. That benchmark has been reached, Easterbrook said. "I believe the intersection should be reconstructed as a normal full-access intersection allowing vehicles to turn left into the shopping center from Pine Trail, to turn left out of the shopping center onto Pine Trail, and to go straight across Pine Trail from Uptown Square to Office Depot and vice versa," he said. "Stop signs should be placed at the exit from Uptown Square to give the Pine Trail traffic the right-of-way. There is already a stop sign at the Office Depot exit." Because of the current situation with motorists turning around in nearby driveways, Easterbrook said he does not believe these improvements would be any worse than what they face now. Also, some residents have expressed concerns about using Pine Trail as a shortcut to Banks Road, but Easterbrook said he does believe that is a problem because the route is "very circuitous." "Despite the physical barriers that have been installed, including the plastic lane delineator posts and the raised median in Pine Trail, people still drive into the wrong lanes and make illegal left turns onto Pine Trail from the shopping center," he said. "The barriers are not working and the constant destruction of the plastic posts results in extra maintenance for Public Works and an unsightly condition." A number of nearby residents expressed their concerns to the council, including several who believe that these improvements would make Pine Trail the main entrance into Barnes & Noble and a couple who still subscribe to the idea that Pine Trail would be a cut-through to Banks Road. One resident said that there is not enough signage to deal with the problem, the driveway next to Ruby Tuesday was cut too close to the main intersection, and people are even confused with the "Uptown Square" designation on the existing signs, since most people know it as the "Barnes & Noble shopping center." "They [shoppers] might go in there a couple of times a month," she said. "We go in there two or three times a day." Councilman Al Hovey-King suggests putting signs on the median or elsewhere in the right-of-way to encourage southbound drivers to make the U-turn at the stop light. But Easterbrook said the state Department of Transportation will not allow signs there, since the state prefers the redesigned, full-access intersection. The council moved to table the matter until its next meeting.
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