Friday, March 12, 2004
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Friday, March 12, 2004 |
| City moves to curb cut-throughs in Smoke Rise By J. FRANK LYNCH Motorists who cut through one of Peachtree City’s most exclusive neighborhoods to avoid Ga. Highway 54, Walt Banks Road and Peachtree Parkway North will find the shortcut takes a little more time, once the city installs “traffic calming devices.” Residents of the Smoke Rise neighborhood on the north shore of Lake Kedron who’ve grown weary of the cut-through traffic, petitioned the City Council to do something about the situation at the March 4 meeting. Similar speed “humps” as opposed to “bumps” have been installed elsewhere in the city, such as Golfview Drive and at The Avenue, said Mayor Steve Brown, and not only seem to work, but satisfy residents. A study commissioned by the city’s engineering department in 2000 showed that cut-through traffic accounted for as much as 9 percent of all vehicle traffic down Smoke Rise Trace, the main street in the neighborhood of homes priced as much as $1 million. Smoke Rise Trace stretches for nearly two miles, with brick and concrete mailboxes built right on the curbs. It is accessed off Peachtree Parkway at Tinsley Mill Road, the main entrance to the neighborhood, which also has a back-entrance, off Sumner Road near the Coweta-Fayette EMC office on Hwy. 54. Despite the natural obstacles, city officials determined that the residents had a valid argument, based on both speed and volume of traffic, the factors considered. Fire Chief Stony Lohr expressed concern that the devices would slow response time, but nonetheless the Council voted to authorize installing four of the devices along the route.
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