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.
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.”
Related:
- Cobb DOT seeks condemnations for Lower Roswell Road project
- Cobb commissioners set 2024 referendum for transit sales tax
- East Cobb transit center, bus routes on Cobb Mobility SPLOST project list
- Cobb to distribute $4.5M in ARPA funds to child care centers
- Cobb commissioners drop pro-Israel resolution
- Cobb County Manager gets raise, contract extension
- New Cobb Elections director hired; will start in December
- Citizens skeptical of transit tax at East Cobb town hall
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