Transportation forum Monday at Chamber
By Staff Reportsnews@newnan.com
A Community Transportation Forum will be held by Newnan-Coweta Chamber of Commerce Monday from 6 - 7 p.m. at the Chamber office at Bullsboro Drive and Farmer Street.
The Chamber is also taking comments in a survey regarding Coweta County’s 20-Year Transportation Plan. Chamber officials invite members and local citizens to be a part of the conversation to help educate the community on this issue.
Transportation is a key ingredient for economic development. “Our community needs to start educating itself on our transportation needs so that we don’t get choked down and begin to lose jobs,” they said.
“Thanks to the hard work of our county staff, our plan for the future is in place. Regardless of what happens with the TSPLOST vote on July 31, our transportation needs and our plans remain relatively constant,” they said. “Our challenge as a community is to figure out how we will finance future transportation and encourage our state legislators to find ways to fund the projects.”
Chamber officials want the public to consider these Coweta facts:
• Total 20-year budget for projected transportation projects is $408 million.
Current funding sources, which include the $66.9 million from SPLOST, will generate approximately $166 million over the next six years.
• TSPLOST is projected to generate an estimated $200 million over 10 years. $10 - 15 million is needed in yearly maintenance.
• Road maintenance costs at a minimum $8 - 10 million annually. Repair and maintenance delays create safety implications.
• Coweta is 443 square miles. Coweta is larger than Gwinnett County, which is 437 square miles.
• Road repaving costs approximately $300,000 per mile. Coweta has about 900 miles of paved roads.
• Coweta should average 60 miles rehabbed/repaved road per year to keep roads in best shape and most cost effective. In today’s environment, Coweta is averaging less than 25 miles per year.
• Coweta has more than 100 bridges.
• The Newnan-Coweta Airport brings in 281 jobs with a total economic output of $31 million.
• Coweta is the 17th largest county in Georgia out of 159 counties.
• Coweta is the 9th fastest growing county in Georgia. There are 288 people per square mile in Coweta compared to Gwinnett County’s 1,900 people per square mile.
Good things come to our community with improvements and infrastructure investments, they note, asking: What would our quality of life be without transportation improvements like the widening of the Highway 34 corridor to Peachtree City; the Newnan Bypass connecting Highway 34 to Poplar Road and the new hospital; the Green Top replacement bridge; the widening of the 34 Bypass into four lanes; the Greison Trail roundabout?
Coweta’s Comprehensive Transportation Plan can be viewed on the county’s website or by going directly to http://www.coweta.ga.us/index.aspx?page=236 .
Chamber officials said that citizen input is needed to determine what residents feel are the county’s most pressing transportation needs.
They ask the community’s help with that effort by taking a transportation survey. To do so, go to the Newnan-Coweta Chamber of Commerce website, www.newnancowetachamber.org, and click on the “Transportation Survey” button.
“The survey only takes three minutes and citizen input is valuable,” said Chamber officials.
