Published Sunday, May 03, 2009

Roundabout almost did not get off the drawing board

By Sarah Fay Campbell

The Newnan Times-Herald

Newnan's roundabout is the traffic improvement that almost wasn't.

In February 2005, Newnan Mayor Keith Brady suggested the city ask engineers to study the feasibility of a roundabout at the intersection of East Broad Street/Lower Fayetteville Road and Greison Trail/East Newnan Road. Design work for a traffic light and turn lanes had been completed back in 2001.

In May 2005, the Newnan City Council requested bids for a roundabout design. The design work was completed in late 2005 but called for a roundabout 134 feet in diameter.

At the time, it was estimated that a roundabout would cost $293,732, compared to $510,315 for a traffic signal and turn lanes.

In December 2005, the council voted 5 to 2 to solicit bids for the roundabout work.

No bids were received the first time around. In the second round of bidding, there was one bid -- for more than $900,000. The bid was unanimously rejected in May 2006.

The issue came up again a year later, in May 2007, in a city council discussion.

But it wasn't until March 2008 that things got serious.

The Newnan City Council voted 4 to 3 to build the roundabout in April 2008. Voting against the roundabout were Cynthia Jenkins, Clayton Hicks and Bob Coggin.

In June, the council approved the sole bid for roundabout construction. The $520,838 bid was submitted by Southeastern Site Development.

The roundabout opened to traffic on Oct. 28, 2008.

Hicks said he voted against the roundabout because so many of his constituents asked him to. Since the intersection opened, "a lot of them have come to me and said 'we were wrong, it's great. It's not what we expected,'" he said.

Many of his constituents wanted a stop light at the intersection, he said. "I think people were having trouble conceptualizing" the roundabout, and how it would work. "I did too. Mentally, I just couldn't wrap my head around it," he said.

And he thinks many people had preconceived notions based on the roundabout in Whitesburg. There were also issues with a roundabout in the Calumet development. Both roundabouts are much smaller than the one at Greison Trail.

"Until you actually drive it and you see it... it's like buying a house without ever looking at it," Hicks said.

A few months after the roundabout opened, Coggin expressed during a council meeting how pleased he was with it.

"I did something that politicians, and elected officials, rarely do. I admitted I was wrong," Coggin said.

Coggin said he was worried that the roundabout would not handle the volume of traffic that goes through the intersection, and was also worried that the roundabout wasn't big enough. "And knowing how people in Newnan sometimes drive... I was worried about the flow," he said.

People who based their opposition on experiences in Whitesburg were justified because "if you tried to run the volume of traffic in Whitesburg that we run on Lower Fayetteville and East Broad -- you would have a disaster," Coggin said.

He wishes it were a little bigger but "I am very pleased with the way it is working."

Jenkins was the most outspoken opponent of the roundabout, and was particularly concerned about pedestrians trying to make their way through the intersection.

Hicks said he is still concerned about pedestrians.

Jenkins could not be reached for comment.