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Monday, November 13, 2006
Will new lanes make Ga. 400 bearable?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
So, Ga. 400 commuters, how was it? After a final weekend of construction, Ga. DOT has opened new lanes on Ga. 400 northbound between Holcomb Bridge Road and the Forsyth County line. How was your commute today, and do you think the lanes will make a big difference in your daily travels?
Note the southbound lanes are still under construction, and several of you have reported that it’s as bad as ever for southbound commuters.
Staff writer Ariel Hart is wiriting today about what’s ahead for Ga. 400. She writes:
The congestion and construction on Ga. 400 affect Michele Layne “all day long,” she says.
Her evening commute is just two exits from work in Alpharetta to home in Alpharetta, but whether or not there’s roadwork, she said, the entire eight-mile drive takes 40 minutes. Because of traffic, her company is having trouble hiring for a regular business shift because people want to work 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., she said. She sees road construction leading people to slow down when they see orange barrels and to enter traffic at ramp speeds too low for traffic speed, causing “a ton of accidents.” As she spends her day scheduling technicians to go to other construction sites, “we’re having to schedule less people in a day” because travel takes so long.
Construction mixed with Ga. 400 traffic, she said, is a mess.
For all their travails, Layne and her fellow Ga. 400 commuters finally are scheduled to enjoy the first fruits of the $47 million construction project up to McFarland Road on Ga. 400 that started last year. Even as she spoke, a stone’s throw away a piece of the construction was being lifted for the first time. Contractors spent the weekend repainting lines on northbound Ga. 400 from Holcomb Bridge Road to Windward Parkway, and by this morning, those six expanded miles were slated to carry their first morning commute.
But the relief may be an oasis, and the piecemeal opening symbolic of something larger. The rest of the project up to McFarland Road is still ongoing. The southbound lanes in that section are not scheduled to open for several weeks or maybe months, and the rest of it is scheduled to finish in 2007. And other projects loom.
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Should Sandy Springs trade single-family homes for townhomes?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Last week, the City Council and Mayor voted 4-3 to defer a re-zoning application along Roberts Drive –just south of the Chattahoochee River.
An Atlanta-based developer had plans to tear down three single-family homes and build 26 townhomes in their place.
Although the proposal is on track with the city’s comprehensive plan, which calls for 8 to 12 units per acre in that area, residents say the new upscale addition would still be out of place in their neighborhood of single-family homes.
Residents, who sent hundreds of e-mails and showed up en masse at Wednesday’s meeting, say they voted for the creation of a City of Sandy Springs to protect their neighborhoods from plans like this one.
The Council will re-hear the case in March but in the meantime, what do you think they should do—keep the single-family homes or approve the townhomes?
Read the proposal on the city’s Website
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