To the editor,

There have been articles recently about the widening of Hammond Drive. I have participated in several focus groups about the development of the center of Sandy Springs over the past 20 years.

Traffic in our saturated rush hours is like water in a pipe. If you enlarge the pipe, you simply get more water. Adding traffic to the Hammond corridor will bring that traffic to Roswell Road and the evolving City Center. Neither can tolerate more through traffic.

We just went through the widening of Johnson Ferry/Abernathy roads to facilitate east-west traffic. There are only two major bridges over the Chattahoochee River: Johnson Ferry and I-285. We should be doing what we can to direct east-west commuters to the two major arteries.

The evening slowdown on I-285 westbound is from the back up of I-75 northbound. Until I-75 is eased, I-285 westbound will back up.

So how can we work with the Georgia Department of Transportation and Cobb County officials to improve I-75?  Expand CCT travel to the Perimeter area? Develop circulator mid-sized bus routes? All of these should be explored before a very costly and disruptive re-construction of Hammond Road.

Expanding Hammond would send commuter traffic to the Mount Vernon/Riverside area through the City Center. There will be over 2,000 new people living in a five-block radius of “City Springs” within the next two or three years. We do not know where those people will work and what sort of transportation they will use. A Hammond widening project will bring more east-west commuter traffic through this area and clog the City Center streets.

What needs to be on the T-SPLOST are projects that facilitate commuter traffic to the two, major east-west bridge corridors. The existing city-purchased lots should be converted to pocket parks for the benefit of the surrounding neighborhood.

D.J. DeLong

To the editor:

“Local rules differ on cranes hoisting loads over streets” [Reporter Newspapers, May 13-May 26], was a very good story with great research.
All cities should adopt the Occupational Health and Safety Administration concept for public protection when cranes are used, especially because it is a bigger disaster if things go wrong.

It’s hard to believe that Sandy Springs has no ordinance, and maybe, too, in my city of Brookhaven. Imagine a carload of kids …

Robert Branson