Main Street Stone Mountain Streetscape Proposal

Information from Main Street Stone Mountain, Inc.

Here is my view of the project and I hope it echos what the view of MSSM is:

1. No one wants any business to be harmed by a project who's goal is to fix a current problem. i.e. two wrongs don't make a right. Especially given the current economic situation that the Stone Mountain business district is in, we certainly don't want to impair or hinder another business's ability to function. However, In the latest traffic survey conducted in the City, nearly 20,000 cars per day attempt to negotiate the intersection of JBR Memorial, Main Street and Silver Hill. Nearly 10,000 cars bypass Main Street into the residential areas of the City to purposely avoid that intersection. Unfortunately for the German Bakery and to the Texaco acrossed the street from the German Bakery, this intersection is the biggest contributor to the traffic woes in Stone Mountain.

2. Motorists spend nearly 13 minutes navigating through the City Limits of Stone Mountain. That is 13 minutes to travel less than one mile. That is unacceptable. GADOT correctly rates this an F, which is the lowest rating any traffic problem can get. The only way that the City to raise the level from an F to anything other than an F is to demolish the historic buildings lining Main Street and make four lanes of traffic going through town. THIS CANNOT BE THE ANSWER. As such, we work with the materials at hand and that involves losing part of a parking lot, part of an outdoor seating area, part of a gas station, and a cherry tree. This project will lessen the time motorists sit in traffic from 13 minutes to 3 1/2 minutes. Despite still being an F with GADOT, this is a drastic improvement.

3. Throughout the country, cities, counties and states are finding that reducing traffic congestion stimulates economic growth. Clearly no one can argue that Stone Mountain is long overdue for economic growth.

4. Nothing is certain yet about this project. The City is continuing its efforts to minimize the impact on private land owners, while balancing the improvements to the traffic situation. The owners of the German Bakery will be the primary focus of concern and it is the hope of MSSM that the City and the Friese's can reach a resolution that all parties will be satisfied with.

By the time I was able to complete this email, the Mayor forwarded to me the data that he has compiled. I have attached it to this email for your review. Thank you again for this opportunity.

Adam Emrick
Interim Executive Director
Main Street Stone Mountain, Inc.
922 Main Street Stone Mountain, GA 30083
(770) 498-7334

The following information is from Mayor Gary Peet.
The most common question I received regarding the five intersection project in the City of Stone Mountain was why spend $1,600,000.00 on a project if the intersection was going to remain a category

Based upon recommended benefit values from the Congestion Mitigation Task Force the time savings and fuel savings for this project would be $955,000.00 a day just for the peak traffic volume in the morning and afternoon on Main Street.

The economic impact is huge due to the fact that travel times through the intersection at peak traffic hours will be reduced by over eight minutes per vehicle. So, although technically the intersection remains a category there are few projects in the metro area that can produce these results.

There are two measures that categorize the level of service at this intersection.

The first measure is the ratio of the number of vehicles to the lane capacity. A ratio of 1.0 is at capacity. Our ratings are 2.83 and 2.47 respectively for the northbound and southbound peak hours on Main Street. In other words, the number of cars traveling northbound in the morning and southbound in the evening far exceeds the capacity of one lane. Since it is impossible to add two more lanes through town, the intersection will always be rated an as measured by the volume of traffic. However, the ratio will be reduced to 1.79 and 1.37 respectively. Remember, 1.0 means the road is at capacity.

The second measure is the travel time delay measured in seconds. Scoring the intersection to determine the level of services is as follows:

Category A less than or equal to 10 seconds
Category B between 10 and 20 seconds
Category C between 20 and 35 seconds
Category D between 35 and 55 seconds
Category E between 55 and 80 seconds
Category F over 80 seconds

Our current delay is 749 seconds and it is estimated to increase to 799 seconds by 2008 for northbound traffic on Main Street at the peak AM hour. However, adding turn lanes will dramatically improve traffic flow through the intersection. After construction of the project, it will take 281 seconds to go northbound during the peak hour. The estimated reduction in travel time is 65%. The estimated reduction in travel time southbound in the peak evening hour is 73%.

There are few intersection projects that can produce these positive results. That is why our application for funding received a ighly recommended rating by the Georgia Air Quality Partners This group reviewed 140 applications and only 34 received the ighly recommended rating. Only three other cities received funding from CMAQ.

As a result of the recommendation, the ARC included this project in the Transportation Improvement Plan with funding from the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) fund.

The primary purpose of a CMAQ project is the reduction of harmful auto emissions. This letter will not delve into the technical data that shows that his project will significantly reduce harmful emissions. The reductions are due to the dramatic reduction in travel time delays.

Clean air is important not only for the obvious reasons. The metropolitan Atlanta region is under a federal mandate to achieve clean air standards. Failure to meet these standards could result in the loss of funding equal to billions of dollars. The impact on traffic congestion and air quality would be so awful that failure to meet air quality goals is not an option.

There are other benefits to this project, but this response is already too long and complicated. I will elaborate at a later date on the aesthetic value and improvement to property values that will result from construction of this project.

Note 1: The Congestion Mitigation Task Force is made up of representatives of the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT), the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC), the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority (GRTA) and the Georgia State Tollway Authority (GTA).

Note 2: The criteria for measuring the level of service for both capacity and time delay are found in the Highway Capacity Manual, Millennium Edition.

Note 3: The Georgia Air Quality Partners is made up of representatives of the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT), the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) and the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (EPD).

Gary Peet, Mayor
City of Stone Mountain, GA