The Fayette Citizen-News Page
Friday, March 12, 1999
DOT on 6-laning Hwy. 74 from 54 to Crosstown Rd.: 'It's still on schedule'

By KAY S. PEDROTTI
Staff Writer

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If the widening of Ga. Highway 74 in Peachtree City is being delayed by lawsuits over "grandfathered" road projects, "it has not filtered down to the people in design; we are still on the same schedules," Mike Reynolds said at a Chamber of Commerce luncheon Tuesday.

Reynolds, a former Georgia Department of Transportation (DOT) design group manager for the project, said the widening process is on track to begin rights-of-way appraisals this spring. After the next step negotiating for the rights-of-way with property owners the project will be "let for bids" on July 1, 2001, Reynolds said. About two years after that, Peachtree City users could expect to see the highway widening finished, said Joe Garland, the new DOT design group manager for the Hwy. 74 project.

DOT design engineer Clay Bastian outlined plans for the widening, starting on the south end just north of the soccer complex (at Cooper Lighting) and going north to Ga. Highway 54. There are plans for widening all the way south to the south Starr's Mill school complex, but that is a separate project, Reynolds said.

Bastian noted that plans call for a six-lane road north from Crosstown-TDK Boulevard to Hwy. 54 because of the volume of traffic and the number of "turning movements." Double left-turn lanes are planned for three legs of the Hwy. 54-74 intersection, except for Hwy. 54 westbound, which is limited by the Westpark shopping center and a large area of buried utilities, he added.

Reynolds also noted that there are plans for several sections of "noise walls" near Kelly Drive and Paschall Road where the widening may affect residential properties. He also commented that the improvement and widening of Hwy. 54 and Ga. Highway 34 into Newnan are "on the same schedule, that we could begin to get money for rights-of-way this year."

About 50 representatives of Fayette businesses and industries, most of them located on or near Hwy. 74, attended the luncheon at Falcon Field Airport. The Chamber's "Existing Industries Committee," cochaired by Mark Samuelson and Emory Taylor, hosted the event.


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