Friday, September 6, 2002
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Friday, September 6, 2002 |
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PTC Council to meet Tuesday on Golf View Drive traffic; group opposes new changes By JOHN
MUNFORD
A group of Peachtree City residents wants the City Council to remove the traffic calming devices that have been added to Golf View Drive in the last few months to slow down traffic. Curt Wagner, a representative of the group, said a petition to that effect has garnered over 700 signatures. Of the families he has spoken to who live on Golf View, "the vast majority" don't want the traffic calming measures, he said. The group will make a presentation to the Peachtree City Council will meet Tuesday at 7 p.m. at a special called meeting to discuss the issue. Wagner said the current traffic calming devices on Golf View, which include multiple stop signs and two pairs of speed humps, don't meet federal and state regulations. "It is true that there is some speeding on the road," Wagner said, but police statistics show that over four years, 85 percent of the vehicles traveling on Golf View stayed under the then-30 mph speed limit. In addition to the removal of the stop signs and speed humps, the group also wants the speed limit brought back up to 30 mph from the current 20 mph limit. The speed humps impede the response of emergency vehicles to an area that serves over 350 homes, Wagner added. "You are jeopardizing the safety of 354 families with the speed humps," Wagner said, saying it is hard for fire trucks to slow down to cross the humps and then have to accelerate again. The city originally installed speed humps that spanned one lane at a time, allowing for a "gap" that could be used by emergency vehicles. But motorists would swerve through the gap to avoid the speed humps, city officials reported. The speed humps were also raised at the request of city staff to combat sport utility vehicles whose heavy duty suspensions allowed them to traverse the speed humps without slowing down. The multiple stop signs add more noise to nearby homes and also cause more pollution from automobiles, Wagner said. Speed violators on Golf View should be addressed by police officers instead, Wagner argued. The traffic calming devices simply aren't warranted by the national and state regulations, he added. "You don't do it on a political whim and run an experiment in a neighborhood," Wagner said. The group opposing the traffic calming devices has found there have been no major accidents on Golf View, either. City officials have been very cooperative in providing statistics and other information to the group, Wagner added. Council recently lowered the speed limit to 20 mph. All the changes came after Golf View Drive residents petitioned council earlier this year to help slow down traffic on the street, claiming a number of near misses where residents have almost been struck by speeding vehicles. The recent upgrade to the traffic calming measures on Golf View has drawn a protest from motorists who use the road on a daily basis. Some motorists are honking in protest as they drive along Golf View, which features two higher speed humps that extend across both lanes of traffic and several stop signs. The new traffic signs on Golf View have even been vandalized, according to city officials.
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