Road project to spur big changes

By Mark Davis

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

It was a good house. Stephanie McClarty raised her kids there, told them to mind their manners, warned them to stay in the yard.

The little home on Green Street, she thought, would be a reminder of the good times. “I was going to leave it for my children,” said McClarty, who is leasing the house to tenants.

Instead, she will leave them only memories. The house, along with more than 60 other homes and businesses here, is in the path of a roadway that will transform the face of Douglasville. It is progress — six lanes’ worth.

City, state and federal officials are planning to change the route of a stretch of Ga. 92, a heavily traveled highway that links travelers from the city’s downtown to Paulding County. The proposal would route traffic beneath a train track, flatten a small shopping district, relocate families and permanently close a few intersections to automotive traffic.

It is a $70 million project, the largest project in Douglasville’s history. Officials say the project likely won’t start until 2013, or perhaps later, and will require three years to complete.

Charts created by the state Department of Transportation lay it out: a 2.7-mile highway that loops off Fairburn Road, an artery leading downtown, and links with Ga. 92 north of the business district. Along the way, it rolls through hilly terrain occupied by small homes, apartments and condominiums. Also standing in its path are a Big Lots discount store, a bakery, a couple of restaurants, a hair-braiding business and a rent-to-own shop.

It would remove traffic from a snarled intersection that leads into the heart of the town’s historic district, where old brick buildings with plate-glass eyes watch trains pass.

And it would remove the little house on Green Street, which McClarty’s father built 22 years ago for his three daughters.

No opposition, but ...

No one disputes that the road needs help. For 30 years, city and state officials have talked about doing something to alleviate congestion on Ga. 92, where morning and afternoon traffic tie-ups are a jaw-clenching fact of life. The DOT estimates that 45,000 vehicles use it daily, traveling south to I-20 or north into Paulding County.

“A lot of people have questions” about the project, said Douglasville City Manager William Osborne. “I don’t believe you’ll find anybody ... who said they basically are opposed to it.”

The region’s future depends on streamlining traffic in and out of Douglasville, said Rep. David Scott (D-Ga.). He recently hosted a public hearing about the project.

“It could stifle the life of the community if we don’t get that traffic out of there,” he said.

The revised highway, said Jeff Noles, Douglasville’s director of development services, will transform the city. Late last month, he and other city officials discussed the project with about 35 people at a middle school. Visitors squirmed on wooden bleacher seats as he took them on a PowerPoint tour of the job.

“You can’t take [away] 45,000 cars and have them north and south without there being some sort of economic impact,” said Noles, who headed the hour-long presentation.

The city, he said, is confident the businesses will thrive; merchants will be able to attract local customers who now have to fight out-of-town traffic passing through the city.

City Council member Callye Burk Holmes isn’t convinced. Like the rest of the council, she supports the project, which will be funded entirely with federal money. But she also has an eye on who is affected, and who is not. Three-quarters of the road project is located in her ward, which is heavily African-American and Hispanic. She worries that her constituents will get steamrolled when the earth movers arrive and a road begins taking shape.

“The concept is wonderful,” said Burk Holmes. “The goal for me still remains that the businesses are still treated fairly and are considered for economic opportunities.”

Dany Martinez, owner of the Panaderia Santa Elena bakery, is concerned, too. His business shares space in an aged shopping center catering primarily to Hispanic customers, located just off Fairburn Road. They are in the way of the revised Ga. 92.

“Bottom line?” he asked. “It is progress. Regardless of what I think, it is going to happen.”

Neighboring merchant Felix Garcia isn’t as resigned.

“I don’t really want it,” said Garcia, who owns the restaurant El Tacomiendo. “Everybody here will have to find a new place.”

Not everybody. Opposite the old shopping center is a CVS pharmacy, built about three years ago. When city officials approved the pharmacy’s construction plans, they required contractors to build it facing the new highway; at present, it appears slightly diagonal to Fairburn Road.

“We didn’t want it to be out of whack” when the new roadway is built, said Osborne.

Dealing with details

The precise, final path of Ga. 92 has not been determined. City and state officials are still soliciting comments about the project, which federal guidelines require. But, barring something unforeseen, the new road will adhere closely to the path engineers have drawn.

The project will take place in three stages. The first focuses on the site where Ga. 92 crosses train tracks. Plans call for an underpass for the tracks, plus Strickland Street, which runs parallel to the rails.

“When a train comes through, traffic stops,” said Osborne, the city manager.

The second phase focuses on the tract south of the tracks, where Martinez, Garcia and others have businesses. The last phase, north of the tracks, heads into neighborhoods where people own or rent homes. The phases are supposed to be done at the same time, officials say.

The scheduling worries Burk Holmes. Road work south of the rails will make it harder for people on the other side of the tracks to get to groceries, restaurants and medical help, she said.

“I’m not putting a race card on it,” she said. “The [underpass] must be first, but ... then it should be the citizens. They are people. They are families.”

They are people like Stephanie McClarty, the mom who wanted to leave her Green Street home to her children and grandchildren.

She found the spot on a DOT map where her home is located, then traced her finger along a line depicting six lanes of traffic. One lane rolled directly over the home site.

McClarty shrugged. ‘I didn’t think they were going to get my home,” she said.