Cobb DOT estimates that a roundabout will provide the biggest time reduction in getting through the Holly Springs-Post Oak Tritt intersection.
After holding an open house in February to solicit feedback on proposals to ease congestion at the intersection of Holly Springs Road and Post Oak Tritt Road, Cobb DOT has scheduled a similar public meeting this month.
The next open house is set for Tuesday, May 14, from 6-7:30 p.m. at the Mountain View Regional Library (3330 Sandy Plains Road) “to review community input received on the Holly Springs Corridor 2022 SPLOST project.”
Cobb DOT has presented three options for improvements at that intersection:
A roundabout costing $3.4 million
A signal upgrade costing $2.5 million
Right turn lanes costing $449,000
Another proposal includes a signal improvement at Holly Springs and Sandy Plains Road, at a cost of $383,000.
Those expenses don’t include acquiring right-of-way properties. The available budget overall is $3.9 million.
Cobb DOT said a roundabout would provide the best traffic relief option, in terms of reducing wait times (see table below).
If that’s done, the existing traffic signal would be removed, and a multilane roundabout would be constructed, similar to what’s on Hembree Road at the entrance to Pope High School.
The signal upgrade calls for through lanes going north and south as well as turn lanes in the north-, south- and eastbound lanes, with the signal rebuilt.
Those projects would take an estimated 16 months to complete.
The third option would add southbound and eastbound right lanes and rebuild the signal.
That option, plus the Holly Springs-Sandy Plains option, would take around six months to complete
Cobb DOT didn’t specify what proposed changes may be in store for the upcoming open house, but the project is still considered to be in the conceptual stage.
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Contractors for the Georgia Department of Transportation will close lanes along closures State Route 120/Roswell Rd NE (SR 120) this weekend as resurfacing activities continue on the roadway from SR 120 ALT to the Cobb County/Fulton County line.
Resurfacing improves the condition of the deteriorating roadway and provides a smoother ride for drivers.
Weather and on-site conditions permitting, one alternating right or left lane will be closed on SR 120 in the project area beginning 9 p.m. on Friday, April 5 until 6 a.m. on Monday morning.
These lane closures will help ensure the safety of drivers and workers as crews begin milling, inlay and resurfacing operations on the roadway. Expect delays and use signed detours, exercise caution, and reduce their speed while traveling through work zones.
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Cobb County Government said Tuesday that for the next week, traffic will be affected on Roswell Road at East Cobb Drive as emergency sewer repairs are made
Crews will begin work Wednesday and continue weekdays from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. through next Tuesday, government spokesman Ross Cavitt said.
Two lanes—one in either direction on Roswell Road—and the shoulder at the intersection will be closed. In addition, Cavitt said East Cobb Drive will be restricted to right turn only onto Roswell Road (see map above).
No work will be scheduled over the weekend, Cavitt said.
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Submitted information from Cobb Commissioner JoAnn Birrell:
Please join the Cobb County Department of Transportation and me 5 – 7 p.m., Wednesday, Feb. 28, in the theatre at The Art Place – Mountain View, 3330 Sandy Plains Road, Marietta for an open house to learn more about the county’s plans to improve safety and traffic operations on Holly Springs Road. The county recently completed a study of the corridor between Sandy Plains Road and Old Canton Road and is recommending improvements at the intersections of Holly Springs Road at Sandy Plains Road and Holly Springs Road at Post Oak Tritt Road.
During this open house, the county will have concept boards on display and will be seeking input from the public and nearby residents regarding the proposed improvements to these intersections.
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“I am trusting that the community will be operating in good faith as partners to come to an agreeable solution,” Richardson said.
After hearing from the Cobb DOT director about the need to improve traffic safety on Lower Roswell Road near Parkaire Landing Shopping Center, Cobb Commissioner Jerica Richardson on Tuesday persuaded her colleagues to delay the long-awaited project again.
During a regular business meeting, the commissioners voted 5-0 to indefinitely table voting on two agenda items—one seeking right-of-way condemnations involving six businesses and the other approving a $7 million construction contract for the project.
Richardson said that the delay would be used to create a project fact sheet to be distributed to the public by a “construction ambassador” designated to work with the community and business owners.
“What I am asking from my community is that I am making this decision despite the trust that I have in the expertise and care of our DOT staff,” Richardson said, before the vote, reading from a prepared statement.
“And because I am trusting that the community will be operating in good faith as partners to come to an agreeable solution, I am asking that we stay focused on the facts, and not inject external influences into this conversation.”
It’s been more than a decade since Cobb DOT proposed traffic improvements at a busy intersection it says has a high number of vehicle crashes.
The project, with funding coming from the Cobb 2011 SPLOST, would add turn lanes, install a multi-use trail and make other improvements along Lower Roswell between Woodlawn Drive and Davidson Road.
Cobb DOT maintains that the proposed raised median—which would prevent left turns out of Parkaire Landing onto Lower Roswell Road—would substantially reduce crashes (from a 2021 project fact sheet.)
Cobb commissioners approved a conceptual plan in 2022. Further public feedback prompted DOT later in 2022 to redesign the project, including removal of a planned bike path and expanding a multi-use trail to accommodate pedestrians and cyclists.
But business owners have been concerned about the impact of the median all along.
On Monday, Richardson met with business owners, and said she “wanted to do some additional research regarding the impact of the median to local businesses.”
She said she read through engineering reports that show that “medians tend to have a positive impact on business sales and patronage.”
The proposed median would have two breaks, at Parkaire Landing, near Kroger, and at the McDonald’s across the street.
Barista’s owner Joel Gilmer said a median along Lower Roswell Road would make cut-through traffic conditions near his coffee shop even more dangerous than he says it is now.
But Joel Gilmer, owner of the Barista’s Coffee Shop on Lower Roswell Road at Davidson Road and nearby H2Oasis, told commissioners repeatedly that installing a median “is a bad idea.”
He said he visited several businesses that would be affected by the median and said they agreed with him.
Gilmer said he and his Barista’s employees, as well as customers, are constantly being threatened being hit by cars using a parking lot in the Parkaire Triangle retail center where the coffee shop sits as a cut-through, or what he calls “the bypass.”
“The people coming out of Kroger [at Parkaire Landing] to that traffic light to Lower Roswell [at Davidson] are not going to use that traffic light,” he said. “They’re going to use the bypass.
“The owners of that parking lot are going to close entrance and exit points along Davidson Road to keep the cars from coming through,” Gilmer said.
“It’s going to cause people to go down the Davidson Road drag strip, down to Bayliss Drive, over to Sunset Trail and then up to Lower Roswell to beat the light.”
Those vehicles will be passing through communities and by individuals walking, some with pets and children, he added, “in constant danger of being hit.
“It’s going to happen. This is a bad idea.”
When Richardson asked Cobb DOT Director Drew Raessler if he could confirm that a median would reduce crashes, he cited previous traffic analyses—some going back to 2009—reflecting higher numbers than along a longer stretch on Lower Roswell near Woodlawn.
The vote by the commissioners refers the agenda items back to Cobb DOT for further study, but and Richardson again implored the community to work together “over these next several weeks.
“What I do not want,” Richardson said, “is to yet again kick the can down the road, and the situation will continue to get worse. Someone will be seriously hurt, and that point we will all be wondering why something wasn’t done sooner.”
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Cobb DOT is seeking condemnations for portions of commercial property on Lower Roswell Road near Johnson Ferry Road.
Efforts by Cobb DOT to acquire right-of-way to begin long-planned improvements along Lower Roswell Road have hit a snag with some commercial property owners.
The department said it’s still negotiating, but will ask the Cobb Board of Commissioners on Tuesday to approve condemnation proceedings for six parcels of land at Parkaire Landing Shopping Center and across the road near the intersection of Johnson Ferry Road.
Those include properties housing a Bank of America branch, a McDonald’s, a medical building and a small strip retail building, as well as a Taco Bell.
In an agenda item (you can read it here), Cobb DOT said the condemnations are needed “to ensure project deadlines are met,” but didn’t indicate when those deadlines might be. The condemnations would be enacted “in the event negotiations are unsuccessful.”
The condemnations would include property for permanent rights-of-way as well as temporary construction easements.
It’s been more than a decade since Cobb DOT proposed traffic improvements at a busy intersection it says has a high number of vehicle crashes.
The project, with an estimated cost of $9 million from the Cobb 2011 SPLOST, would add turn lanes, install a multi-use trail and make other improvements along Lower Roswell between Woodlawn Drive and Davidson Road.
The agenda item states that there is funding available for permanent right-of-way acquisitions for the six parcels, but doesn’t indicate a cost.
Until a few years ago, there wasn’t much public skepticism of the plan, although the county has been talking with business owners concerned about a proposed raised median affecting their businesses.
Cobb DOT maintains that the proposed raised median—which would prevent left turns out of Parkaire Landing onto Lower Roswell Road—would substantially reduce crashes (from a 2021 project fact sheet that hasn’t been publicly updated).
After some residents expressed opposition in 2022, Cobb DOT held a town hall meeting about the project at the East Cobb Library. Many of the objections were over the creation of bike and pedestrian lanes.
Additional public feedback prompted Cobb DOT to announce in late 2022 it would redesign the project, including removal of a planned bike path and expanding a multi-use trail to accommodate pedestrians and cyclists.
That redesign hasn’t been unveiled.
The specific parcels being sought for condemnation resolutions Tuesday include the following:
Parcel 22 (4811 Lower Roswell Road; Papa John’s Pizza, My Emergency Dental, 101 Bagel Café) 5,097 square feet of right-of-way
Parcel 28 (4939 Lower Roswell Road, Parkaire Medical Center): 1,226 square feet of right-of-way
The commission meeting begins at 9 a.m. Tuesday in the second floor board room of the Cobb government building (100 Cherokee St., downtown Marietta), and the full agenda can be found by clicking here.
You also can watch on the county’s website and YouTube channels and on Cobb TV 23 on Comcast Cable.
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
Contractors for the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) will install lane closures on State Route 120/Roswell Rd NE (SR 120) this Saturday night as resurfacing activities continue on roadway from SR 120 ALT to the Cobb County/Fulton County line. Resurfacing improves the condition of the deteriorating roadway and provides a smother ride for drivers.
Weather and on-site conditions permitting, one alternating right or left lane will be closed on SR 120 in the project area beginning 9 p.m. on Saturday, February 3 until 5 a.m. on Sunday morning. These lane closures will help ensure the safety of drivers and workers as crews begin milling, inlay and resurfacing operations on the roadway.
This $7.1 million resurfacing project is scheduled for completion in spring 2024.
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“I can’t support a 30-year tax, but it will be up to voters to decide,” commissioner JoAnn Birrell said.
In a partisan vote, the Cobb Board of Commissioners on Tuesday approved adding a referendum to the November 2024 general election ballot on whether to collect a 30-year sales tax for a major development of the county’s transit system.
Commissioners also approved a project list for the referendum that in East Cobb would include the reinstatements of bus routes running along Roswell Road and connecting to the Dunwoody MARTA station, and a new transit station in the Roswell-Johnson Ferry area.
The Cobb Mobility Special-Purpose Local-Option Sales Tax, if approved by voters, would collect a one-percent tax for an estimated $10.8 billion, financing the creation of several high-occupancy bus routes, the construction of transit centers and expanding microtransit, paratransit and other transit options around the county.
Cobb collects a SPLOST for overall county projects, and the Cobb County School District also has its own SPLOST for school construction, maintenance and technology projects.
But Cobb DOT officials have been planning for a possible transit referendum for several years, with Atlanta Regional Commission projections that the county’s population will near a million people by 2050.
The board’s three Democrats voted in favor of having the referendum, while Republican commissioners were opposed.
The items on the project list would add 106 miles of bus and transit routes to the existing CobbLinc service, which has only one route in the East Cobb area, along Powers Ferry Road.
Commissioner JoAnn Birrell of District 3 in East Cobb said the length of the proposed tax is far too long, and consists only of transit projects.
“In the past I’ve always supported our county SPLOST going to a referendum, but the maximum they were was six years,” she said. “But they had not only transportation, but libraries, parks, public safety and other departments.
“I can’t support a 30-year tax but it will be up to voters to decide and that’s the bottom line.”
Commissioner Monique Sheffield of South Cobb, who grew up in Brooklyn, said she might not have had the educational opportunities she had without being able to ride the subway in New York City, and that many young Cobb citizens are facing similar obstacles.
“The generations are getting younger, things are changing,” she said. “I look forward to see how this plays out in the community.”
Cobb Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid said that “we have moment of transformation before us today.”
She compared the chance to vastly expand transit options to the 2013 vote by commissioners to enter into a 30-year memorandum of understanding with the Atlanta Braves to build a baseball stadium, and the county’s buildout of sewer systems in the 1980s.
“I’m sure there were reasonable voices of concern about those times, but there are reasonable considerations of why now,” said Cupid, who was the only commissioner to vote against the Braves stadium deal.
“This is a board of action, this is a board that wants to get this done,” she said. “I’ve seen moments of opportunity come and go.”
Cobb voters rejected a referendum in 1971 to join the then-now Metro Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority. In 1989 the county created Cobb Community Transit (now called CobbLinc) to provide a limited amount of transit services, including express buses serving commuters in downtown Atlanta.
She said Cobb has had “consideration of a robust investment in transit for almost 50 years now. . . . and we’re at a key time to offer commensurate options for our community.”
Commissioners voted along the same 3-2 split to approve spending $187,000 for an education campaign to take place in 2024 ahead of the referendum.
That effort, which includes a combined donation of $100,000 from the Town Center and Cumberland Community Improvement Districts, will include town hall meetings and other information presented to citizens.
After the vote, citizens spoke on the issue in public comment sessions.
Kevin Cutliff of East Cobb, a 21-year-old who supports the transit tax, said many in his generation are struggling to afford cars to get around.
He uses a combination of an electric bike and CobbLinc, but said he doesn’t feel safe with the former and feels “disconnected” with the latter, saying the current system has very limited access to the rest of metro Atlanta.
“This transit referendum hopefully will change that going forward,” Cutcliff said. “When voters use transit, this affects all of us, when all of it is connected.”
But Cobb resident Tracy Stevenson said the overall cost of the Mobility SPLOST—nearly $11 billion—”is a buttload of money.
“Do we need to overhaul the system? Probably? Do we need to have compassion for people? Absolutely. Are there are better ways to do it that use a 30-year technology to move forward. We put rosy new names on things, but it’s still a bus system.
“If we can manage the system better than we have now then why don’t we?”
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A proposed bus route from Marietta to the Johnson Ferry Road corridor would restore service to East Cobb that was eliminated in Cobb budget cuts during the recession.
A project list for the proposed Cobb Mobility SPLOST would include what is being called an Arterial Rapid-Transit line along Roswell Road to the Johnson Ferry Road area, a total of 6.6 miles, and with an estimated cost between $125 million-$150 million.
That project list also includes a proposed East Cobb Transit Center, one of several planned as part of a proposed 30-year tax that would collect nearly $11 billion in sales taxes.
Cobb DOT officials will ask commissioners on Tuesday to place a referendum on the November 2024 ballot on whether to approve the tax, and to approve the project list it has compiled.
That list (you can read it here) details the cost breakdown for eight different project types, with nearly $6 billion devoted for what’s called “high-capacity” transit bus lines.
The proposed Roswell Road route is one of three in the Arterial Rapid-Transit category, along well-traveled routes and that connect to major activity centers.
The East Cobb route would extend to Avenue East Cobb, just east of Johnson Ferry Road, and down to Merchants Walk Shopping Center.
The East Cobb Transit Center location wasn’t specified in the project list information, but it would connect the East Cobb ART route with two proposed bus routes serving Fulton County and DeKalb County.
Those routes would extend to South Atlanta Street in the city of Roswell and the Dunwoody MARTA Station, according to the proposed project list.
The former is included on a list of local bus routes; the latter in a rapid-bus transit list of routes that would make fewer stops.
Currently the only transit option in the East Cobb area is a CobbLinc route along Powers Ferry Road.
Republican commissioners JoAnn Birrell and Keli Gambrill oppose a 30-year tax.
In September, county officials held a town hall at Fullers Recreation Center, where residents expressed skepticism to a transit tax.
The commission meeting begins at 9 a.m. Tuesday in the second floor board room of the Cobb government building (100 Cherokee St., downtown Marietta), and the full agenda can be found by clicking here.
You also can watch on the county’s website and YouTube channels and on Cobb TV 23 on Comcast Cable.
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Cobb DOT will be holding an open house next week for citizens to learn about proposed improvements at Shallowford Road and Gordy Parkway West.
The open house takes place Wednesday, Oct. 18 from 6-8 p.m. at the Mountain View Regional Library (3320 Sandy Plains Road) and will be conducted on a drop-in basis.
There will be no formal presentation but project displays will be available and citizens are invited to ask questions and provide feedback.
Here’s a Cobb DOT fact sheet about the project, which costs an estimated $600,000 and would include the following:
Shifting the left turn lane on northbound Gordy Parkway to improve sight for turning
Adding a fourth crosswalk on the west leg for pedestrians
Shifting the right turn lane on northbound Gordy Parkway to improve pedestrian visibility.
Seeking public comment is the first phase of the project, which has a tentative timetable of completion by fall 2025.
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Commissioner Jerica Richardson listens as Cobb DOT director Drew Raessler outlines options of the proposed Cobb Mobility referendum. ECN photos.
As an open house period preceded a town hall on the proposed Cobb Mobility Referendum, some citizens who gathered at the Fullers Park Recreation Center Thursday weren’t happy with how the event was set up.
After an hour, Cobb Commissioner Jerica Richardson, Cobb DOT director Drew Raessler and other county, metro Atlanta and state transportation officials conducted a panel discussion and answered written questions from the crowd of about 50 people.
Some complained that there was no process for verbally questioning those at the front of the room, but after a while, a few citizens did anyway.
The Cobb Taxpayers Association, which opposes a transit tax of any duration, distributed two full pages of questions its leader, Lance Lamberton, says the county isn’t trying to answer.
Including the first question: “How much will the transit tax cost the average citizen on an annual basis?”
Lamberton was among the skeptics who question the need for a one-cent sales tax for transit and other transportation that Cobb DOT presented last month.
One option would be for 10 years that would collect $2.8 billion and the other is a 30-year tax that would collect $10.9 billion. The latter is endorsed by Cobb Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid, who said at a work session last month that would enable the county to get more federal matching funding.
Commissioners are expected to vote later this year on whether to call for a referendum in November 2024, but Richardson told East Cobb News before the town hall a date to formally consider that action hasn’t been discussed.
Thursday’s open house was the first of several to take place around the county through the end of October to gauge public response to the possibility of having a transit tax.
She said the feedback she’s received has been “a mixed bag” that presents a variety of issues and options, including accessibility, pedestrian safety, road resurfacing and paratransit and microtransit services.
The bulk of the proposal would be to create and expand what Cobb DOT calls “High-Capacity Transit” bus services, primarily in dense areas in the Cumberland and along Interstate 75 as well as around Town Center and the main Kennesaw State University campus.
The options include Bus Rapid Transit, which would operated in dedicated lanes, and Arterial Rapid Transit, which blends in with other vehicles.
The only current CobbLinc line that runs in East Cobb is along Powers Ferry Road.
There is a proposed 6.6-mile ART route that would run along Roswell Road from the proposed Marietta Transit Center near the Big Chicken to Johnson Ferry Road, with a projected cost between $125-$150 million.
That’s similar to a route that was previously operated by Cobb Community Transit (now CobbLinc), but was discontinued by commissioners during the recession. It had some of the lowest ridership numbers in the system.
“Ultimately, he voters have the right to say what their tax money will be used for,” Raessler said after highlighting the referendum presentation he made to commissioners in August (you can read it here).
That was a prelude to a question that has been on the minds of many as Cobb DOT prepares to put together a project list before the anticipated commissioners’ vote.
Why?
Raessler pointed to project population growth of 25 percent in Cobb County by 2050, to more than 1 million residents, and a 24-percent increase in the county’s number of employed people, to more than 500,000.
He said KSU students have expressed easier access to CobbLinc, the county’s existing bus service.
An expanded and blended system, Raessler said, is more flexible and affordable than rail, and can take some of the features of rail “to make it work better.”
“We’re in the transit environment that was envisioned 30 years ago,” said Brad Humphry, a mobility member of Richardson’s citizen “cabinet.”
“The opportunity is now to envision the transit system of the future.”
“We don’t want to be another Sandy Springs,” resident Virginia Choate said.
But several citizens spoke out adamantly against those transit options, saying they would lead to higher density in more suburban areas.
Richardson had said that there would be no proposed changes in density from the county’s future land use map to accommodate transit.
“We’re going to stay consistent with the Future Land Use Map,” she said.
Raessler said that bus service would indeed look different around the county because of varying levels of density that already exist.
“There will be a different look [with routes] connecting the KSU campuses and anything going into East Cobb,” he said.
But resident Virginia Choate said “we do not want to look like Sandy Springs. . . . Buses from the Big Chicken to East Cobb are not needed.”
Raessler emphasized that the need to expand transit now is to get ahead of the anticipated influence of new residents and workers.
“How can we accommodate that growth?” he said.
When Lamberton pressed him on this primary question—the cost the tax would cost the average household—Raessler said “it depends on the household.
“It is a sales tax and it depends on how much that individual is spending.”
Richardson admitted that she has issues with a sales tax that is regressive by nature and would hit those on the financial margins the hardest.
She suggested that perhaps state lawmakers could revisit the 2022 law allowing for local mobility referenda to create some exemptions from the tax in certain categories of sales.
Richardson said she’s inviting further public feedback on the issue and invites citizens to examine her mobility presentation.
Five more open houses are scheduled on the mobility referendum, including Saturday, Oct. 14, from 10 a.m to 12 p.m. at the Tim D. Lee Senior Center (3332 Sandy Plains Road).
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A few weeks after Cobb commissioners were briefed on options for a proposed Cobb mobility sales tax, one of East Cobb’s representatives will have a forum on transportation issues.
District 2 commissioner Jerica Richardson is holding a forum next Thursday from 5:30-8 p.m. at Fullers Recreation Center (3499 Robinson Road) that’s free and open to the public.
Cobb DOT will present recommended options (info sheet here) and provide an overview the proposed Cobb Mobility SPLOST, or special-purpose local-option sales tax, as well as existing transit services, technology, current and upcoming projects.
It’s touted as the “Future of Mobility,” but the focus figures to be on a proposed 2024 SLPOST referendum that commissioners have yet to vote on setting.
It’s tentatively set for November 2024 after being delayed last year.
At an Aug. 22 commission meeting, Cobb DOT director Drew Raessler laid out two sales tax options, one for 10 years that would collect $2.8 billion and a 30-year tax that would collect $10.9 billion.
Commissioners were divided on the issue, with Republican JoAnn Birrell of District 3 in East Cobb saying she wouldn’t support a tax longer than five years.
Richardson, a first-term Democrat who announced last week the launch of her 6th Congressional District campaign, hasn’t stated a preference for the length of a tax.
A number of the transit projects in the Cobb DOT Mobility SPLOST presentation include expanded and “high capacity” bus service.
One of the few in East Cobb is a 6.6-mile line that would run along Roswell Road from the proposed Marietta Transit Center near the Big Chicken to Johnson Ferry Road, with a projected cost between $125-$150 million,
That’s a similar route that was previously operated by Cobb Community Transit (now CobbLinc), but that was discontinued by commissioners during the recession. It had some of the lowest ridership numbers in the system.
To register for the transportation forum, click here.
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
A Cobb County political organization with ties to the Tea Party is urging the Cobb Board of Commissioners to vote against holding a transit tax referendum in 2024.
The Franklin Roundtable, which labels itself “a non-partisan advocacy group based in Marietta,” said its board of directors has voted unanimously to oppose the proposed tax.
Cobb commissioners are expected to decide later this whether to call for a transit tax referendum after voting along party-lines in March to hire a consultant to plan for such a referendum.
Jim Jess, chairman of Franklin Roundtable, said in release that “the transit tax is nothing but a boondoggle. We need serious traffic solutions. But what do we get from our commissioners? Empty buses on Cobb County streets. Multimillion dollar transportation studies that make consultants rich. And transit proposals that won’t improve traffic flow. Who is being served by this? It’s certainly not the citizens of Cobb County.”
The three Democrats on the board voted to hire the consultant, Kimley-Horn & Associates, to prepare for what’s being called the Cobb Mobility SPLOST.
It’s a one-percent, special-purpose local-option sales tax that Democratic Chairwoman Lisa Cupid has proposed to be collected for 30 years for a variety of transportation purposes, including mass transit as well as traditional transportation options, including resurfacing.
The two Republicans voted against hiring the consultant, and have said they’re opposed to such a long tax-collection period.
GOP commissioner JoAnn Birrell of East Cobb has publicly supported a five-year tax for road transportation projects.
The Franklin Roundtable, named after Benjamin Franklin, is a non-profit that supports limited government, free markets and fiscal responsibility. Its website states that since 2018, it has been the “official public name” of the Georgia Tea Party Inc.
“Most of our current commissioners are not serious about real traffic solutions, and they are not fiscally responsible,” Jess said. “They are more concerned about serving the economic development lobby and the consultant lobby. County spending reflects this year after year.”
Much of the group’s statement focused on mass transit, which it called “an idea best left in the previous century.”
Instead, the Franklin Roundtable suggested in one example that the county contract with Uber or Lyft to help those needing transportation to work.
The group also suggested building flyover lanes or access roads to bypass busy intersections, and the purchase of vans that are “smaller and can move through traffic more quickly” than more expensive buses.
Jess said that “solutions like the ones we are talking about are simply common sense. We need our commissioners to make some better decisions, beginning with dropping the idea of a transit tax. It really doesn’t make sense for our situation in Cobb County.”
The Franklin Roundtable release said that should there be a referendum, it will work with “a coalition of likeminded citizens and organizations to defeat this wasteful, ineffective and unnecessary tax.”
Cobb DOT officials told commissioners in March that part of the consultant’s work was to conduct further outreach, following an objection to a 30-year tax from the mayor of Cobb’s cities.
Cobb DOT has not yet released a detailed project list of what might be used with tax revenues.
Department head Drew Raessler said this spring more input is being is being sought from citizens and in cities and community improvement projects to hear “what type of projects they would like to see.”
He has said that more transit solutions need to be provided to Cobb citizens so the county can continue to grow economically.
Cupid said at the same March meeting to hire the consultant that “I think we have a significant opportunity to invest in our future, at least just to ask the citizens the questions, to flesh out with the mayors what the options are.”
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
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The proposed sidewalk covers 0.1 mile on Bill Murdock Road across from the Walton HS campus.
Funding for a sidewalk connecting the Walton High School campus with a new sports complex for the school will be requested Tuesday by Cobb DOT.
The Cobb Board of Commissioners will be asked to spend $720,897 for the one-tenth of a mile sidewalk along the southern side of Bill Murdock Road, between Old College Way and Pine Road (see map below).
In an agenda item for Tuesday night’s meeting (you can read it here), Cobb DOT said $359,762 would come from the 2022 Cobb SPLOST School Zone Improvements component. Another $384,762 in Cobb DOT water system funding would be needed to relocate water lines.
The low bidder was Advanced Sports Construction, LLC of Woodstock.
The sidewalk would extend to a $1 million pedestrian bridge that the Cobb Board of Education approved in April to the sports complex, traversing a creek located in a flood plain area near the Bill Murdock-Pine Road intersection.
The sports complex is located on property on Pine Road and Providence Road that the Cobb County School District has purchased to construct a $6.738 million sports complex, housing the Walton varsity tennis and baseball teams.
Walton’s tennis teams played home matches there this spring, but the baseball portion of the complex is still under construction.
Safe access to the complex from the school campus to the complex, which will have 80 parking spaces, is necessary for practices as well as competitions.
The Cobb school district tried to get Cobb DOT to increase pedestrian crosswalks, but to no avail. Cobb DOT also was looking at realigning Bill Murdock Road and Pine Road to straighten out a curve near the intersection, but that also will not be happening.
Traffic at the intersection is regulated by a three-way stop sign.
The Board of Commissioners meeting Tuesday will take place starting at 7 p.m. in the second floor board room of the Cobb government building (100 Cherokee St., downtown Marietta).
On the agenda will be a recognition of two students at Hightower Trail Middle School and another at Dickerson Middle School who have attained the Girl Scout Silver Award.
Another agenda item includes confirming the appointment of Georgia Bureau of Investigation director Michael Register as Cobb Public Safety Director. Register would be returning to a position he briefly held in 2018-19.
The meeting will be live-streamed on the county’s website, cable TV channel (Channel 24 on Comcast) and Youtube page. Visit cobbcounty.org/CobbTV for other streaming options.
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The first phase of one of several major traffic improvements in the East Cobb area under the 2022 Cobb SPLOST goes before Cobb commissioners Tuesday.
A $495,292 engineering design contract to improve the Johnson Ferry Road-Shallowford Road intersection is on the agenda for a regular meeting of the Cobb Board of Commissioners Tuesday morning (agenda item here).
Cobb DOT is recommending that the work go to Kimley-Horn and Associates, Inc. of Atlanta, and the agenda item states the work includes the following details:
“The project will evaluate the need for intersection improvements to address operations and vehicular safety. The improvements may include, but are not limited to, addition of travel and turn lanes, and pedestrian improvements. The scope of services for the design-build delivery will include a traffic study, concept development, environmental document, preliminary design, and design services throughout construction of the project.”
Improvements at that busy intersection have been anticipated for several years, especially with the coming redevelopment of the southwest quadrant with East Cobb Church, retail shops and a single-family subdivision.
It’s one of several road projects in the 2022 Cobb SPLOST (Special-Purpose Local-Option Sales Tax) that will be funded mostly with federal revenues.
Cobb government spokesman Ross Cavitt said in response to information requested by East Cobb News that the total budget of the Johnson Ferry-Shallowford project is $7.75 million, with $5 million in federal funding. Commissioners would have to approve funding for the local match in a separate vote, after the design work is finished.
Two other major projects in the East Cobb area also will have substantial federal funding. Improvements at the Roswell Road-Johnson Ferry Road intersection are projected to cost $15 million, with $10 million from the feds and and $5 million from the Cobb SPLOST.
Likewise, the widening of Roswell Road—one of the most expensive projects in the 2022 SPLOST at $60 million—will get $48 million from the federal government and $12 million locally.
The 2022 SPLOST was approved by Cobb voters in 2020, and is expected to collect $810 million from Jan. 1, 2022 through Dec. 31, 2027.
Of that total, $361 million has been earmarked for road and traffic projects, including $227 million for repavings, along with bridge repairs, traffic management and sidewalk upgrades.
Also on Tuesday, commissioners will be asked to spend $8.132 million to purchase two vacant office buildings in an industrial park. The buildings are on 10 acres on West Oak Circle and West Oak Parkway and include 85,000 square feet. They would house official documents that are required for the Cobb County Records Services Division to retain and archive.
The agenda item states that various records are held in a number of facilities around the county and are at capacity: “This purchase of the two office buildings will allow the County to consolidate storage of records. In addition, the purchase will allow for storage of records in a climate-controlled environment, necessary for preservation of vital records.”
Once purchased, the buildings would need to be renovated at a cost of $1.362 million, pushing the total cost to $9.5 million. The Cobb Support Services Agency is recommending the funding come from the county’s reserve.
Another item would update the county’s policies on compensation, education incentive pay, nepotism, anti- harassment and discrimination, parental leave, performance appraisal and discipline. (details here).
The Cobb Board of Commissioners meeting starts at 9 a.m. Tuesday in the second floor board room of the Cobb government building (100 Cherokee St., downtown Marietta). You can read through the full agenda by clicking here.
You also can watch on the county’s website and YouTube channels and on Cobb TV 23 on Comcast Cable.
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
The three Democrats on the Cobb Board of Commissioners Tuesday voted to spend more than $500,000 to hire three separate consulting firms to help the Cobb Department of Transportation prepare for a transportation sales tax referendum in 2024.
The contracts will be for developing project lists and providing planning and engineering services, as well as conducting community outreach.
Cobb Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid has proposed a one-percent, 30-year sales tax for transit, but the board’s two Republican members are opposed to anything longer than five years.
What’s been called the Cobb Mobility SPLOST, or M-SPLOST, would fund mass transit services as well as traditional transportation options, including resurfacing.
The county set aside $400,000 for consulting services for the M-SLPOST referendum, but on Tuesday spending that was approved totaled $529,839:
WSP USA, Inc., $207,205
Kimley-Horn & Assciates, $192,795
CDM-Smith, Inc., $129,839
Republican commissioners JoAnn Birrell and Keli Gambrill voted against the contracts, objecting to the long-term nature of the proposed 30-year sales tax.
State law gives local governments that option, and they also could levy a five-year, one-percent tax for surface projects, which Birrell has supported.
While commending Cobb DOT director Drew Raessler and his department for their efforts, Birrell said that “all along I have said I cannot support a 30-year tax. . . . Getting anybody to get on the same page up here is a difficult task.”
The county held town halls and other public events in 2021 for a sales tax referendum targeted for 2022, but put that on hold when mayors of Cobb’s cities objected to a 30-year tax.
Gambrill asked Raessler why more outreach was necessary, and he said that it would be more targeted, especially to those in cities and community improvement districts to hear “what type of projects they would like to see.”
Cupid said that “I think we have a significant opportunity to invest in our future, at least just to ask the citizens the questions, to flesh out with the mayors what the options are.
“This isn’t a done deal yet. But hopefully we’ll get the data to support where we could potentially go, with additional help fleshing out what the [project] lists are.”
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The intersection of Holly Springs Road and Post Oak Tritt Road.
The Cobb Board of Commissioners Tuesday approved the hiring of a traffic engineering firm to start an improvement project in the Holly Springs Road corridor.
The board voted unanimously(5-0) to spend $166,100 for Southeastern Engineering, Inc. to conduct a traffic study, develop a plan concept and involve public feedback.
The funding comes from the 2022 Cobb SPLOST, as will the $3.3 million for the project, which will make improvements on Holly Springs between Old Canton Road and Sandy Plains Road.
A contract for construction would come to commissioners after the design is completed.
The Holly Springs project been prioritized as a “Tier 1” road project in the 2022 SPLOST, which was approved by voters in a 2020 referendum.
In 2021, Cobb DOT completed a nearly $1 million project to make improvements at the Holly Springs-Old Canton intersection, including the construction of pedestrian refuge islands, a guardrail, signage and striping at a three-way intersection.
The initial plans for the 2022 SPLOST project were to make improvements at the Holly Springs-Post Oak Tritt Road intersection.
But an agenda item for Tuesday’s meeting said SPLOST funds “will be used to make operational and safety improvements at intersections and corridors throughout the county.”
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
The signal upgrade calls for through lanes going north and south as well as turn lanes in the north-, south- and eastbound lanes, with the signal rebuilt.
She suggested that perhaps state lawmakers could revisit the 2022 law allowing for local mobility referenda to create some exemptions from the tax in certain categories of sales.
