Fewer students enrolled at Georgia Perimeter College this fall, but you’d never know it by the traffic that clogs two streets leading into the Dunwoody campus.
Two-lane Tilly Mill and Womack roads become parking lots during rush hour, when commuters and nearly 8,800 students cram onto residential streets in a bid to get to I-285 two miles away.
“It took me 12 minutes to get out of my driveway to go the grocery store,” said Janet Glass, a retired teacher who lives across the street from the college. “I know. I counted.”
Such woes aren’t limited to neighborhoods next to commuter schools. But the college-community friction has escalated in recent years to the point that the city and the college have begun what is expected to become a regular series of meetings.
The goal of the Dunwoody Town and Gown Committee is not just traffic control. Both sides hope to increase communication and understanding for their shared home.
“I’m a firm believer that this college should feel like it belongs to the community,” said GPC President Anthony Tricoli. “We want to get to a place where we feel we are one with one another.”
That could take some doing. Georgia Perimeter opened its 100-acre Dunwoody campus in 1979. At the time, Dunwoody was something of an outpost, a bedroom community nestled in the far northern end of DeKalb County.
The community has since blossomed into a city of 40,000 with a massive retail and office center clustered around Perimeter Mall.
Dr. Adrian Bonser got involved in local politics after leading neighborhood opposition to a new parking deck at the campus in 2008.
Now a city councilwoman, Bonser said that she and neighbors still have complaints about noise and lights from the college reaching their homes.
“They’ve tried to label us as complainers, but these are legitimate concerns,” Bonser said.
Tricoli said the college will review whether it can shut down its tennis courts at night or look into getting more up-to-date lighting, to help address the concerns.
The problem is lack of money. As part of the state college system, GPC is dealing with a barebones budget that doesn’t allow for many new programs.
That includes the possibility of whether the college could ease traffic woes by starting a shuttle service between the college and nearby First Atlanta Baptist Church.
“If we could tie up 500 cars there, you’d see the benefit to the community immediately,” said GPC Police Chief Nick Marinelli.
City Manager Warren Hutmacher said the city will look into the possibility of shuttles for the campus as part of its upcoming transportation plan. That plans calls for using data from both the city and the college.
That is the sort of cooperation the new committee is designed to push. The group also wants to encourage residents to go to campus for events such as free jazz concerts, soccer games and art shows. Students, meanwhile, would be encouraged to get involved in community events.
The committee plans to tackle that and other issues at its next meeting, sometime in November.
“We’re going to have to deal with each other the best we can,” Glass said. “We are neighbors.”
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