County Considering Road Closing & Adding Roundabouts Near School

Oconee County is proposing the closing of Cole Spring Road from Snows Mill Road to Hog Mountain Road to address traffic problems, Board of Commissioners Chair John Daniell told the Land Use and Transportation Planning Committee last week.

Daniell also said he can “envision” three roundabouts on Hog Mountain Road, one at Clotfelter Road, one at the entrance to North Oconee High School, and one at the Snows Mill Road and Rocky Branch Road intersection.

Daniell was chairing the final session of the Land Use and Transportation Planning Committee, which has been dissolved in favor of a Transportation Task Force with the limited assignment of reviewing the Oconee County Long Range Transportation Plan.

Daniell also discussed another transportation plan, by MACORTS, the metropolitan planning authority for Oconee County and its neighbors, which proposes bike and pedestrian lanes being added to Daniells Bridge Road and Hog Mountain Road from Butler’s Crossing to U.S. 441.

Bikers and pedestrians could share a single, widened path or lane on the same side of the road, separated from traffic, or could be on separate dedicated paths or sidewalks on the opposite sides of the traffic, Committee members were told.

MACORTS held public hearings on that plan last week in Oconee County, Athens-Clarke County, and Madison County, which make up the active members of the organization.

Nineteen people attended the MACORTS meeting at Oconee Veterans Park in Oconee County, while only two attended the meeting in Athens-Clarke County and only one person attended the meeting in Madison County, according to Sherry F. McDuffie, MACORTS planner.

For more on the story, with a video of the Land Use and Transportation Planning Committee meeting, please go to Oconee County Observations.

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