The Hall County Commission has voted to table the approval of a scheduled re-assessment of a neighborhood off of the soon-to-be widened Spout Springs Road.
Several residents of the Ivy Springs subdivision came to express concerns to the commission at it's Thursday meeting, saying that plans need to include a way for residents to make left turns in and out of Ivy Springs Drive, the only entrance or exit into the neighborhood. The current plan calls for a median on the then-four lane road that would only allow right ins and right outs.
Charles Chapman was the first to speak on behalf of the community and he said that the main concerns are about safety. He said that the current plan could require students living in the neighborhood to stand along Spout Springs Road to be picked up by school buses.
"The most important thing is that our children being out on a busy four-lane highway to be picked up for a bus is just unconscionable," Chapman said. "We struggle and have difficulties getting into the traffic today, and this plan merely just takes the problem and moves it down 100 to 50 feet down the road and expects us to still navigate the same problem."
If the current plan is put in place, residents of Ivy Springs wanting to head south on Spout Springs Road would need to turn right out of the subdivision, then work into a nearby left turn lanes and U-turn into the southbound lanes. Residents would also need to U-turn to get back into the neighborhood if they were approaching from the north.
The county commission has approved plans for a future road project that will move Elizabeth Lane to meet with Lake Sterling Boulevard and create a four-way intersection. Chapman and others suggested that the county could relocate nearby Oak Ridge Drive to meet Ivy Springs Drive and form a similar intersection.
Hall County Public Works Director Ken Rearden said after the meeting that that option may be difficult to implement based on information the county has gathered on the corridor so far.
"We have looked at this subdivision on a very case-by-case basis and all the traffic studies call that it does not warrant a traffic light at this point in time," Rearden said. "The GDOT regulations now are to try to control things like that to do right ins and right outs."
The commission tabled the agenda item which would have had the county conduct an evaluation several months after the Spout Springs widening project was completed. Residents said they feared that if the evaluation was put off until after the widening that it could derail any solution from being reached.
The item will be up for a vote again at the commission's January 25 meeting.
