Quick Poll

Is Memorial Day an 'off day' for you or a 'work day' with your business open?

Recent Polls

Blogs

Angela McRae

Tea with friends

Deberah Williams

Everyday Finesse

Lorrie Lynch

Who's News

Published Friday, January 06, 2012 in Local

Photo by Jeffrey Leo

A transfer truck headed eastbound along Georgia Highway 34 to Creekside Industrial Park turns north onto the newly named “International Park” — formerly Walt Sanders Memorial Drive. New road signs went up in recent days.

'International Park:' Name changed to alleviate dangers at railroad crossing

By Sarah Fay Campbell

The Newnan Times-Herald

Walt Sanders Memorial Drive is no more.

In name, at least.

The road, which serves Creekside Industrial Park off Highway 34 East, became "International Park" effective Jan. 1. Walt Sanders Memorial Court became "Enterprise Court."

The Coweta Board of Commissioners enacted the name changes on Aug. 18.

The goal was to prevent tractor-trailers from crossing railroad tracks at a different location -- U.S. 29 and Walt Sanders Road. Over the years, many truck drivers trying to get to the industrial park went to Walt Sanders Road north of Newnan instead.

Walt Sanders Road is in a residential area and does not connect to the industrial park. Before Interstate 85 was built, the two roads were one, which is why they had similar names. Both are now dead ends.

When truck drivers attempt to cross the tracks at Walt Sanders Road, they often get stuck -- with more than 100 such incidents since 2003.

Frequently, when drivers entered "Walt Sanders" into a GPS device, they would be sent to Walt Sanders Road instead of Walt Sanders Memorial Drive.

The name change was originally to take effect in early October, but the commissioners delayed it until Jan. 1 in order to give Creekside businesses time to prepare.

The process has been a bit of a hassle, as well as an expense.

"We've had to spend a little bit of money just getting all our printed material changed out. That has been the biggest effect on us," said Resie Autrey, office manager at Southcrest Church.

The church had plenty of notice, and plenty of time to notify members, she said. "Of course, you never want to have to go through that kind of a change, but we had enough notice," she said. "I wouldn't say it was a hardship, but it definitely wasn't something we had budgeted to change out."

Though they don't have to worry about truck deliveries, there have been issues with people getting lost. When a program featured comedian Jeff Foxworthy "we had some people that were down on the other end of town trying to find us," Autrey said.

The name change "hasn't affected us yet," said Ashley Crabtree, office manager with Elite Restoration.

"We weren't happy that we were going to have to change all our business cards and letterhead and things like that. It's kind of an inconvenience," Crabtree said.

They haven't made those changes, yet. "We don't have a whole lot of customers that come to our shop," she said. "It's mostly just inconvenience for our people that we deal with by mail."

Changing addresses on printed materials has been an expense for Maxxis tire distribution center, said Ed Jones.

In addition to letterhead, there are "our large, very expensive glossy catalogs that we use around the world," Jones said.

They haven't replaced the catalogs yet but probably will sooner than expected. "We're trying to be as conservative as we can and not waste money to throw a bunch of very expensive" catalogs away, Jones said. "Our customers know where we are."

He estimates the final cost of the name change to Maxxis will be $20,000 to $25,000.

"We should have been asked. We should have been notified in the beginning, and at least consulted in some way to see if it would affect us," Jones said.

Because the name change was a safety issue, "I don't think anything we could have said would have mattered," anyway, he said. But it would have been nice to have been consulted.

Jones said they contacted Coweta County Administrator Theron Gay about the issue after reading about it in the newspaper. "He was very cooperative, and he worked with us very well," Jones said.

He definitely doesn't want there to be any more accidents involving trucks on Walt Sanders Road, and changing the road name is "one of the ways to start solving the problem," Jones said.

"I think six months from now none of us will notice" that things have changed, Jones said.

Jones said his company has never had any issues with people getting lost. "All of our customers send their own trucks and it is the same drivers who have been coming since the very beginning," he said.

The name change was spearheaded by Commissioner Bob Blackburn, who was concerned about the possibility of a catastrophic accident in the future, including a train derailment or major chemical spill.

When the name change was first discussed, Blackburn said the county could possibly offer some financial assistance to the companies, to help them make the necessary changes.

But that never panned out, according to the company representatives interviewed.

The county is trying to speed up the updating of GPS systems and maps by offering the county's GIS data to GPS companies for free.

Typically, local governments charge for that data.

"We're in the process of trying to get that done," Gay said. "It has been more difficult to give that data to them than we ever thought it would have been."

Changing the data in the 911 system was much easier.

It's not known how long it will take GPS systems and online mapping tools to show the new road. On Thursday, Google Maps and MapQuest still listed Walt Sanders Memorial Drive, and searches for "International Park" turned up unrelated businesses -- or roads of that name in other cities.

Of course, changing the road name won't eliminate the dangers of the railroad crossing -- not every vehicle that got stuck was in the wrong place. The county is continuing to pursue plans to upgrade the crossings.

There are currently two grade crossings that access Walt Sanders Road. One of those will almost certainly have to be closed and the other upgraded.

The county has met with CSX Railroad about the issue.

"Interestingly enough, they were interested and did contact us to try to make some improvements there," Gay said. The contact from the railroad was independent of the county's name change discussion.

"We've met once," Gay said. He said Wayne Kennedy, the county's director of development and engineering, has had additional contact with the railroad.

"We're kind of waiting to get back with them and the Georgia Department of Transportation" to see "what they would recommend with improvements to the crossing," Gay said. There are "a lot of players outside of us" who will be involved in any crossing improvements.

Gay said he thinks CSX is "willing to help in any way they can, and GDOT as well."

Comment On This Story

Times-Herald.com does not necessarily agree with the comments posted below. Responsibility of comments rests solely with the writer. Comments posted in ALL CAPS will be deleted.

Submission of a comment does not guarantee publication. Comments will be posted by a moderator after being scanned for abusive language, relevance, etc. See our Comments FAQ for more details.