Alpharetta Wants to Slow Down Cherokee Traffic

Alpharetta can't reduce the traffic from Cherokee County using the Rucker Road corridor, but the city can narrow traffic lanes and sight lines to slow those motorists down.

"We can't make the traffic go away. I wish we could. It's not going to happen," said Assistant City Administrator James Drinkard, during the city's unveiling of a draft plan for Rucker Road. "Even if we stopped all growth in Alpharetta, which is not going to happen, Cherokee County is growing like crazy. And they're not going to stop."

He said the neighboring county has a lot of growth potential but not a lot of jobs. The work is in Alpharetta and in Gwinnett County. And Cherokee County as plans to widen sections of GA 140.

Residents in neighborhoods along Rucker Road let the city know they wanted a two-lane road in a quiet, tree-lined neighborhood. The road needs to present a rural, residential feel and must have sidewalks connecting the length of the corridor. By making it lined with trees in a 6-foot wide strip to separate pedestrian from vehicle traffic, hopes are that motorists will slow. The lanes will be narrowed to 10 feet wide.

"By narrowing those lanes it give people the feel that they need to slow down," Drinkard said.

Gone would be the deceleration right turn lanes that many motorists illegally use as passing lanes.

From Charlotte Drive to Wills Road, the city plans to add 4-foot wide bike lanes.

Residents asked why couldn't the city add a traffic signal at Charlotte Drive? Pete Sewczwicz, Alpharetta's director of Engineering and Public Works, said if the city installs a traffic signal that did not meet federal standards for traffic, the city would be 100 percent liable.

"If we do that and there is a crash out there, then the city is liable for it," Drinkard said.

Sewczwicz estimates the construction cost to be between $8 million and $10 million. He expects it to take five years to complete the entire project once engineering plans are completed.

Eric Regan, president of Greenmont Owners Association, said he didn't see how the design helps residents get in and out of their neighborhoods, especially to make left turns onto Rucker Road.

Drinkard said by getting rid of deceleration lanes and slowing traffic down, there should be more breaks in traffic to allow opportunities to slip out into traffic. Some areas don't have medians, so there might be a center turn lane that can be used to pause for breaks in traffic.

Sewczwicz said those subdivision intersections might be able to use two-way left turn lanes, or "suicide lanes" as some call them since traffic can enter them from either direction to make a turn.

"It's a suicide lane right now but we don't have a center lane," Regan said.

Motorists might begin seeing a change in their drive with the presence of police patrol cars on this stretch of road.

"One of the things that we've got to do is move our enforcement from in font of Wills Park, and move it further west on Rucker," Drinkard said. Motorists know speed limits are enforced near Wills Park, so they slow down when they reach Wills Road when driving east.