Election Day Countdown – 4 Weeks To Go!
This week’s e-mail will cover Traffic and Transportation. If we want to remain among the best three cities in America to raise a family, we need to reduce traffic and improve mobility in our city.
I have lived in Roswell all my life, and I know how important it is us to maintain and improve our streets as our region continues to grow. I receive more complaints about traffic than anything else, but street improvements are the most controversial, expensive and time-consuming projects the City undertakes. We have to address traffic problems, but we must also make sure that street improvements do not damage the neighborhoods and businesses they serve. To reduce traffic and improve mobility, we have to eliminate transportation bottlenecks, offer new transportation alternatives, create new street connections, and find ways to pay for these improvements without raising your taxes.
Today we have more transportation projects underway than ever before. We just opened the new bridge connecting Westside Parkway to Mansell Road. Within the next 30 days we will be re-opening two additional bridges on Grimes Bridge Road and Hembree Road. Monday night the council approved holding public hearings on plans championed by me to build a new road and bridge over Ga. 400 connecting Old Alabama to the East with Old Roswell Road to the West.
The City has plans for a lot more improvements to reduce the time you lose to traffic congestion and to make it easier for you to travel around Roswell. I am committed to finding the money and obtaining the approval to build these improvements. My opponents have opposed my efforts to improve Roswell’s roads. They have argued that improving roads only brings more traffic. They have overlooked the fact that traffic is already here.
I’m asking for your vote on November 3rd so I can implement the City’s transportation plans and make Roswell an even better place to live.
If you have any questions about traffic, transportation improvements, or any other issues, I would love to hear from you. Please email me at mayorwood@mayorwood.com and I will personally answer your e-mail.
For more details about what I am doing and my plans to reduce traffic and improve mobility, please continue reading this email. It’s longer than recommended by marketing people, but I feel it’s important to give you access to the details so you’ll better understand my approach to transportation improvements.
TRAFFIC AND TRANSPORTATION
Traffic Signals
This year Roswell funded a project to network traffic signals and monitor traffic with cameras. This will enable us to change red light timing as conditions change to cut the time you lose to traffic delays by up to ten percent.
Intersection Improvements
At intersections throughout Roswell we are designing and building innovative solutions to eliminate the bottlenecks and reduce traffic delays. At the City’s busiest intersection, Holcomb Bridge Road and Alpharetta Highway, we are acquiring right-of-way to add additional left-turn lanes. We are planning innovative “bow tie” roundabouts on Azalea Road either side of South Atlanta Street to eliminate left turns and traffic congestion north of the Chattahoochee River Bridge. The projected cost of these two roundabouts is less than two million dollars, but will reduce traffic delays as much as spending over fifteen million dollars to add more lanes to the bridge over the Chattahoochee.
New Connections
Roswell is creating new connections to make it easier for you to move around our City. This year we extended Mimosa Street to Webb Street, creating a new route from Canton Street to Pine Grove Road. We are acquiring right-of-way to link Swaybranch Drive to Market Place, thereby connecting Warsaw Road and Grimes Bridge Road. Right-of-way has been acquired to extend Mansell Road to Alpharetta Street to divert traffic around the Holcomb Bridge Road / Alpharetta Highway intersection. We are working with developers and the neighborhood to realign Oxbo Road and extend Elm Street to Oxbo. We are designing a new road and bridge over Ga. 400 to connect the east and west sides of our City. This project also envisions new roads on either side of GA 400 running north to North Point Parkway and West Side Parkway. When completed, these new roads will not only reduce congestion and improve mobility, they will open the way to redevelopment.
Pedestrian and Bicycle Improvements
Along with making it easier for automobiles to move around our City, Roswell is making it safer and easier for you to walk or bicycle in our City. We are spending an average of two million dollars a year on new sidewalks, beginning near schools and parks. Bicycle shoulders are being added wherever possible when we re-pave roads. Bicycle and pedestrian trails have been built along the Chattahoochee River and Big Creek. We are constructing a trail from Horseshoe Bend to Fouts Road and the new East Roswell Library site. We are designing a trail from the river up to the Historic Square. I am asking the city to commit to complete sidewalks on both sides of Holcomb Bridge road from Ga. 400 to Ellard, and along one side of Old Alabama to Johns Creek.
Community Friendly Streets
Streets should not only serve automobiles; streets should serve the communities that they pass through. Canton Street owes much of its success to streetscape improvements made by the City. This fall Roswell will begin construction of three million dollars in streetscape improvements to Alpharetta Street south of Holcomb Bridge Road and one million dollars in streetscape improvements to Oak Street. We are re-designing South Atlanta Street from the Square to the River to add a fourth lane to improve safety without encroaching on historic properties.
I have proven that I can reduce traffic and improve mobility without raising your taxes or hurting neighborhoods and businesses. If you want Roswell to keep getting even better, I am your best choice for Mayor of Roswell on November 3rd.
Jere Wood, Mayor of Roswell
Please share this e-mail with your friends and neighbors. 
For Mayor Jere Wood’s positions on Preventing Crime; City Spending and Taxes; Redevelopment Blighted Areas; Helping Local Businesses, and other issues, go to www.mayorwood@mayorwood.com/Issues