The long-planned, $1.1 million fix for the awkward Glenridge Drive/Roswell Road intersection in Sandy Springs is still years away, according to city planners who presented minor tweaks to the design at a Feb. 10 meeting.
First presented almost a year ago, the plan straightens the sharply curving, Y-shaped intersection and its traffic island. Glenridge would shift 130 feet northward to line up with the Round Hill Condominiums entrance on the other side of Roswell Road. Sidewalks would be added along 800 feet of both roads.
The plan has received only minor tweaks since, mostly related to driveway alignments. Responses from more than 40 residents at the Feb. 10 meeting, held at the Hammond Park gym, were similar to those voiced a year ago. There was general approval of realigning the intersection and concerns that the project doesn’t fix the difficulty of making left-hand turns in and out of Glenridge’s residential complexes.
“I think people can see the light at the end of the tunnel,” said City Councilman Andy Bauman, who was among those stopping by the open-house-style meeting. “I see smiles.”
However, actual construction is four or more years away. A tentative schedule provided at the meeting shows right-of-way acquisition in late 2017 and the Georgia Department of Transportation—which is involved because Roswell Road is a state route—putting out a construction bid in late 2018. Construction would take a year. That schedule might happen a bit sooner, consultants from the city-hired firm Qk4 said.
In the meantime, the city is also planning a “Complete Streets” study of the Glenridge Drive corridor, which would include making it friendly to bicycle and pedestrian travel. The intersection project adds sidewalks, but not bike lanes. But Marty Martin, the city’s head of infrastructure projects, said at the meeting that nothing about the intersection plan would preclude adding “Complete Streets” features.
“The bones of the future intersection are here,” and any new amenities can be added to that, Martin said.
The city also offered some traffic data at the meeting. The 2015 traffic counts for the intersection show 33,600 vehicles per day using that piece of Roswell Road, and 18,600 per day on Glenridge. The projected numbers for the year 2039: 44,600 vehicles per day on Roswell and 24,810 per day on Glenridge.
The city maintains a web page for the intersection project that will be updated shortly with the tweaked design. Public comments are being accepted through March 1 at transportation@sandyspringsga.gov.
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