Fayette and Coweta County officials will continue to meet with state transportation officials to iron out the details of an agreement reached last week that would hasten the widening of Ga. Highway 54 west of Peachtree City.

County commissioners last month formally alerted the Atlanta Regional Commission and state Department of Transportation that ARC's 25-year transportation plan didn't place the Hwy. 54 project high enough on the priority list to suit local officials.

It's the number one priority locally, said the commission, and the Coweta County Commission and Peachtree City Council added their voices to that chorus.

Two weeks ago, a delegation that included Fayette County Commission Chairman Harold Bost, Peachtree City Mayor Bob Lenox and Coweta County Commissioner Vernon “Mutt” Hunter met with state officials and secured an agreement to schedule the project for 2005, five years earlier than the proposed Regional Transportation Plan had designated.

The RTP, if approved by ARC early next spring as planned, will guide transportation construction in the Atlanta region through 2025. Approval of the plan by ARC and by the federal Environmental Protection Agency would end a moratorium on transportation projects that has been imposed by EPA because of alleged poor air quality in the region.

“We anticipate that as soon as the moratorium is lifted and the transportation plan approved, they will start to move ahead” with construction of the Hwy. 54 project, Bost told The Citizen this week.

Officials in the next week or so will talk with DOT engineers who plan projects for the south metro area, Bost said, in an attempt to get agreement that the first order of business will be construction of a new, wider bridge over the railroad tracks on 54 just west of Peachtree City.

Traffic going from Peachtree City into Coweta County gets jammed up as it crosses the bridge, Bost said, because that's where the highway abruptly narrows from four lanes to two. And as that traffic backs up, it creates a jam throughout the intersection of 54 with state Highway 74.

“We feel that if we can get that bottleneck relieved, it's the single biggest problem,” said Bost.

Bost gave credit for working out the agreement with ARC and DOT to Coweta County's Mutt Hunter. Hunter, Fayette's former public works director, has long had a good working relationship with state DOT Commissioner Wayne Shackleford, Bost said.

“It's on the fast track now,” Bost said of the Hwy. 54 project. If officials had waited until the 25-year plan was approved to push for the change, he added, “It would have been much harder to get it done after that.”

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