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Forest Hill Road - return to Roundabouts

Bibb County's 1st Roundabout

GEORGIA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate Release                                                     Contact: Kimberly Larson
Wednesday, December 08, 2010                                               (706) 646-6938


GDOT ANNOUNCES OPEN HOUSE MEETING ON A PROPOSED ROUNDABOUT ON SR 74

MACON, Ga.
– The Georgia Department of Transportation announces a public information open house meeting to discuss the proposal to convert the intersection of SR 74/ Thomaston Road at County Road 61/Lamar Road as a roundabout. The open house is scheduled for 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m., Tuesday, December 14, 2010.

This open house format meeting will be held at the Stratford Academy located at 6010 Peake Road in Macon. Georgia DOT engineers will be available to discuss the proposed project. There will be no formal presentation.

“Public involvement is a critical element in the Georgia DOT road planning process and it can make a big difference in the development of projects,” explained David Millen, Georgia DOT District Engineer in Thomaston. “The Georgia DOT strongly believes that since its road projects are intended to serve the people, the ideas and preferences of these people are important.”

Anyone unable to attend the public information open house may send comments on the project to Glenn Bowman, Georgia DOT, 600 West Peachtree Street, 16th Floor Atlanta, Georgia 30308. All comments will be considered in the development of the final project design and must be received by December 30, 2010.

After the open house, you can view the displays of the project at the Georgia DOT Area Office located at 4499 Riverside Drive in Macon. The plans will also be available online at the DOT website at www.dot.ga.gov. On the home page choose “Public Outreach” and select the project’s County and choose go. A list of DOT projects in that County will appear and you can select the one you’d like to view.

Everyone is invited to attend the open house.

The Georgia Department of Transportation is committed to providing a safe, seamless and sustainable transportation system that supports Georgia’s economy and is sensitive to both its citizens and its environment. For general information on the Georgia DOT, please visit our Web site (www.dot.ga.gov).

###

Kimberly Larson
District 3
Communications Officer
Thomaston, GA
706.646.6938 - Office
706.741.3439 - Cell
klarson@dot.ga.gov

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Open house set for Bibb roundabout plan

By MIKE STUCKA - mstucka@macon.com
http://www.macon.com/2010/12/13/1375666/open-house-set-for-roundabout.html

Don’t expect a Hollywood blockbuster with Chevy Chase driving endlessly in a circle, saying, “Look, kids! Lake Wildwood. Tobesofkee.”

A roundabout being planned for a five-way intersection along Thomaston Road will be on a smaller scale -- with just one lane -- than the broad, confusing traffic circles that confused Chase’s character in “National Lampoon’s European Vacation.” Residents can get more information at an open house Tuesday on that roundabout.

Transportation officials say roundabouts improve safety. The Federal Highway Administration says roundabouts reduce fatal accidents by 90 percent, injuries by 76 percent and the number of accidents by 35 percent. Unlike conventional intersections with traffic lights or stop signs, cars can’t get struck head-on or T-bone into each other.

Though only a single such roundabout exists in Middle Georgia, outside Culloden, the Georgia Department of Transportation is contemplating more than a dozen roundabouts for Middle Georgia. Local activists want more than that.

Lindsay Holliday, an activist with CAUTION Macon, said Macon and Bibb County officials should seek three roundabouts along Forest Hill Road alone. Holliday said the intersection with Northside Drive, with several layers of turn lanes, is “the most dangerous, widest, most confusing intersection, and it could have been solved with a single-lane roundabout to handle all of that traffic, according to experts.”

The Thomaston Road roundabout that will be featured in Tuesday’s open house at Stratford Academy, 6010 Peake Road, would tie together five road segnments. Thomaston Road now goes all the way through the current intersection; Lamar Road becomes Johnson Road; and Lower Thomaston, the route to some of Lake Tobesofkee’s parks, splits off nearby.

Georgia Department of Transportation officials worked with Bibb County commissioners to tweak the project, making it bigger to better accommodate trucks and incorporating Lower Thomaston Road into the intersection. The state’s district engineer has said if the project is rejected now, it might not get built.

Construction could begin in January 2013, wrapping up in mid-2014, said Kimberly Larson, district communications officer for the Georgia Department of Transporation. The cost is now estimated at $1.73 million. Areas that have gotten roundabouts like them, she said.

Officials worried the roundabout near Culloden at U.S. 341 and Ga. 74 could confuse people because it was far from a city. No problems have been reported.

“Once folks get through them, they really do like them. They do really figure them out,” Larson said.

To contact writer Mike Stucka, call 744-4251.

http://www.macon.com/2010/12/13/1375710/roundabout-open-house.html
Monday, Dec. 13, 2010

Roundabout open house

An open house for a proposed Bibb County roundabout along Thomaston Road at Lamar, Johnson and Lower Thomaston roads will run 5-7 p.m. Tuesday at Stratford Academy, 6010 Peake Road, Macon. There will be no formal presentation.

That roundabout, if built, will not be Middle Georgia’s first. The state already helped build a roundabout in Monroe County near Culloden.

Middle Georgia roundabouts working through the approval and construction process are:

Bibb County’s Thomaston Road at Lamar Road, subject of Tuesday’s meeting

Bibb County’s U.S. 80 (Eisenhower Parkway) at Holly Road

Monroe County’s Ga. 42 at Ga. 74

Monroe County’s Ga. 87/U.S. 23 at Ga. 18 (Dames Ferry Road)

Peach County’s Ga. 247 Connector at John E. Sullivan Road/Walker Road

Roundabouts under consideration are:

Bibb County’s Ga. 11 (Houston Road) at Liberty Church Road

Bibb County’s Ga. 22 (Eisenhower Parkway) at Fulton Mill Road

Bibb County’s Ga. 22 (Eisenhower Parkway) at Knoxville Road

Butts County’s Ga. 36 at Old Bethel Road/Four Points Road

Butts County’s Ga. 36/South Mulberry Street at Brownlee Road

Butts County’s Ga. 16 at Shiloh Road

Butts County’s Ga. 16 at Ga. 42 on the west side of Jackson

Butts County’s Ga. 42 at Ga. 87/U.S. 23 in Flovilla

Monroe County’s Ga. 87/U.S. 23 at Juliette Road

Monroe County’s Ga. 87/U.S. 23 at Ga. 83

Peach County’s Ga. 49 at Ga. 96

Twiggs County’s Ga. 96 at Ga. 87/U.S. 129/U.S. 23

Source: Georgia Department of Transportation

Roundabout in Elligay, Georgia

Macon's Police Chief, Mike Burns visited Ellijay, Ga at end of October, 2005. He saw a roundabout in the middle of their town square. "I observed the traffic for 30 minutes and everything flowed smoothly."

Here is an interesting article about this Roundabout at http://www.gwinnettforum.com/2003issues/03.0930.htm

See a nice zoom-in map of the 6-way intersection at http://maps.google.com

Citizens want Roundabouts

http://www.macon.com/2013/08/07/2596142/bibb-county-roundabout-ready-for.html

West Bibb County getting roundabout
Published: August 7, 2013
By MIKE STUCKA — mstucka@macon.com

Bibb County is about to get a roundabout.

The Georgia Department of Transportation announced Tuesday that it contracted a little less than $2 million for a roundabout on Thomaston Road at Lamar Road, which is now a complicated area with five roads spurring from it.

Georgia Asphalt Inc. of Juliette is scheduled to complete the work on the circular intersection by April 2015.

The area now has stop signs along Thomaston Road, Lamar Road, Lower Thomaston Road and Johnson Road. The new design calls for a 20-foot-wide road around a 250-foot diameter circle.

The project, presented to the public several years ago, is funded by the Georgia Department of Transportation. Bibb County commissioners agreed to pay the costs of lighting the intersection.

The same commissioners are opposed to Georgia Department of Transportation proposals for roundabouts on U.S. 80 in Lizella, which has four lanes of traffic.

Other roundabouts are in the works. Macon is planning a roundabout at the intersection of College and Oglethorpe streets. Warner Robins is working on two roundabouts along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. One of the state’s first roundabouts was built outside Culloden.

In other news, the Georgia Department of Transportation said it also accepted a bid of about $2.84 million for traffic signal upgrades and intersection video detection systems across Baldwin County. Moye Electric Co. of Dublin is scheduled to complete that work by April 2015.

To contact writer Mike Stucka, call 744-4251.

Article Comment:

Steve Bell
The roundabout at College & Oglethorpe Streets still blows my mind. Round-abouts are for moving traffic, but this location is a school crossing intersection. Only four round-abouts in the entire country have been constructed next to a school.

ADA laws says that you can't make an intersection more dangerous than it already is. So instead of a pedestrian friendly College Hill Corridor we have a vanity project going in that has nothing to do with a need or for safety. I see school traffic shutting it down, then you'll have a useless million dollar project like the "bridge to nowhere" behind Alex II that was poorly designed and literally useless and had to have more money spent on it to become a pedestrian bridge. When mentioned, people often ask, "Why there?" When a traffic count was done it was done during the summer when traffic is lighter. I'd like to see a traffic study done now that school is back in session. Since it's a unnecessary project, I hate to see SPLOST money spent at the tax payer's expense for something that isn't needed when it could go for something that benefits the entire community.

MaconSouthernGent
I'm seeing more round-abouts in the Midwest and in Florida. Thing about a round about, is an 18 wheeler can't run it like it can run a red light. It has to slow down. There have been cases in Georgia of big trucks not wanting to yield their momentum to a red light and the resulting running it when other people see a green light has been funerals.

I have seen ONE four-lane round-about in this country. It works on the same principal and works well.

- CAUTION Macon -