Gwinnett County residents love their cars. That shouldn’t surprise anyone, but the point is being driven home at a series of meetings for citizens to give input on transportation plans. The second of six in the series was Thursday at Snellville City Hall, and county transportation director Alan Chapman again heard the same message.
Through a series of interactive exercise, about 100 or so citizens picked new roads over expanded transit. That didn’t surprise Chapman, especially since the meeting was in the less densely populated southern end of the county.
At a series of similar meetings last year, people along the I-85 corridor in the northern part of the county were more equally split between new and expanded roadways and improvements to public transportation.
Overall though, the county still wants to get where it is going in a car.
The meetings are to address both the short and long term. In fact, the meetings are called “Destination 2040” and are to update the county’s Comprehensive Transportation Plan for the next 25 years. Chapman agreed that in the near future road projects are likely to get the bulk of the county’s transportation money– but other projects will be funded. “We need to have a balanced transportation plan where we address all the needs,” he said.
On maps around the edges of the room, county workers had set up maps showing a potential network of walk/bike trails, intersection improvements, new roads and transit expansions.
Possibly the most popular exhibit for people browsing the displays was a proposed extensive of Sugarloaf Parkway from Georgia Highway 316 to Peachtree Industrial Boulevard.
“We are also here to try to get information,” Chapman said. And one way the county got information was by giving each citizen a set supply of play money and asking them to place money into several containers to show how they would spend transportation money. They container for expanded roads was filling faster than any other.
Once the meetings are complete, the transportation department will compile citizen input into a report, hold a 30-day public comment period on the report and then submit the final report to the Gwinnett County Commission.
