A major Tucker thoroughfare will soon feature the city’s first roundabouts after the city council approved a $2.5 million construction contract at its Feb. 9 meeting.
The council approved a contract for construction that will begin later this year for two roundabouts along Idlewood Road. One at the intersection of Idlewood and Fellowship Road would include raised sidewalks, a single lane roundabout, and four entryways. The second would be at the intersection at Sarr Parkway, with three entryways, Ishri Sankar, the city’s public works director, said.
The roundabouts will ease traffic congestion and improve safety in the two Idlewood Road intersections, which experience increased traffic due to school transportation and rush hour.
“[The roundabout] forces them to slow down. It gives pedestrians some more time to react if a potential accident occurs,” Sankar said. “By slowing down, it reduces the impacts of vehicular accidents.”
The city budgeted about $3.8 million for the project, so the project is currently running under budget, with a 5 percent ($123,455) contingency included in the $2.5 million price tag, Sankar said. Now that the council has approved the contract with Vertical Earth, staff will begin utility relocation in the next month, which will take about four months.
Council pushes communication
A public information meeting is also planned, which District 2’s Cara Schroeder noted should be one of many ways residents are informed about the project.
“Can we communicate how we’re going to try to keep everybody up to date on this? I was kind of hoping we’d have something on the website every couple of weeks – we may have a QR code,” Schroeder said.
The construction is expected to run between 365 days for each roundabout or concurrently for as many as 540 days, which Sankar said will be disruptive for multiple hours, several days of the week. Schroeder, Mayor Anne Lerner, and other council members expressed concern about how communication and the schedule could impact Tucker residents, specifically those with students at nearby schools.
“I ask that we talk to all of the school system, because there’s three schools there, and also they have construction projects [going on now],” Mayor Anne Lerner said. Let’s get everybody in a room from DeKalb, and us, and talk about this.”
Loitering laws
Tucker students were also a topic of concern in relation to the updated loitering ordinance, which council heard on first reading during the Feb. 9 meeting. District 3’s Alexis Weaver said she’s received feedback about students at Tucker High School potentially being impacted by the loitering ordinance change, which will authorize police to enforce the law after business hours, require businesses to post a “No Loitering” sign, and expand which Tucker businesses, i.e., convenience stores, can enforce the loitering ordinance.
Tucker Precinct Maj. Matthew Harden explained that the changes “adds some teeth,” and are not intended to penalize youth or the unhoused, who were also mentioned in the discussion. The update will mirror DeKalb County’s ordinance, which was changed in March 2025.
Harden pointedly responded to Alexis Weaver’s query about whether teenagers would face the same repercussions as adults for loitering.
“It is what it is,” Harden said. “I don’t particularly care if you’re 16 or 68. If you’re violating the law and it is causing a problem, then you’re violating the law.”
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• Tucker’s decade of incorporation recognized by Georgia House
Other city council business:
- Council approved a resolution to appoint Weaver to the DeKalb County Housing Working Group.
- Via the consent agenda, the council approved a memorandum of understanding with DeKalb County for the installation of a median at the interchange of Mountain Industrial Boulevard and Highway 78, which is the highest accident intersection in Tucker.
- Mayor Lerner announced $850,000 awarded to the City of Tucker for the creation of a multi-use path linking existing trails along Hugh Howell Road with the future South Fork Peachtree Creek Greenway Trail. The funds were made possible through Rep. Hank Johnson’s $11 million Community Project Funding.