Residents Hate Congestion, Want Fewer Lanes in Downtown Alpharetta

Alpharetta has just a few more weeks to decide on what it is going to tell the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) it wants done with the city's Main Street. On Monday night consultants told City Council what residents say they want the streetscape to be.

Main Street is a state highway, GA 9, giving GDOT control. The city was given 90 days to prepare its vision for the roadway. That 90 days is up on April 24.

Community Development Director Richard McLeod said Envision Main Street Alpharetta had nearly 600 comments and participants.

"This was I think a remarkable turnout," he said.

Tom Walsh, one of the consultants with TSW, said in the 38 years he's been working on projects such as this, he hasn't seen this kind of turnout in such a short period of time.

The consultants presented cross sections for four sections of Main Street.

"One of big ideas that we heard, south of Vaughn Drive, there is no community support for a continuous median," said Caleb P. Racicot, another of the consultants.

"We heard very loud and clear that this should be a green corridor," he said.

Wider sidewalks and off-street bike facilities, such as multi-use trails, were wanted. Parking in strategic sections also was desired, mostly in the sections in or near downtown Alpharetta.

Although angle parking such as what the west side of Main Street in downtown now has can fit 40-50 percent more spaces, more of the stakeholders wanted parallel parking spaces.

In the aspirational models, the downtown section of Main Street would be two lanes wide, with extra wide parallel parking spaces and wide sidewalks, Racicot said. The section north to Mayfield Road would be two lanes wide with a center turn lane, while sections north of Mayfield would be four lanes wide.

These ideas now have to be vetted as the next phase to make sure they can work. And he said the city has to determine what trade-offs it wants to make between traffic engineering and quality of life.

Councilman Michael Cross said, "If our problem is congestion, and we are trying to get people to come here, I'm not yet seeing the notion of cutting down the number of lanes and the ability to get here. I love the idea of landscaping. I think there are ways that you can have lanes that tend to calm traffic, slow people down a bit and still provide decent capacity."

Racicot said a lot of business owners felt adequate parking is needed on Main Street. They had concerns about lane widths being narrow in areas. Negative feedback was received on the work already done on Main Street near Old Milton Parkway, he said. Some of that was directed at the median preventing turns, while other concerns dealt with traffic flow.

Mayor David Belle Isle said Main Street affects the entire city where 58,000 people live, and the 120,000 people who work here.

"It's important that we get it right," he said.

The mayor said the public will have two more chances to offer their opinions on Main Street: at the April 12 and 22 City Council meetings.