NEWS - Non-Profit Organizations

By Lou Phelps

June 21, 2010 - The Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) has leased land from Bethesda Home for Boys across from the entrance to Whitefield Ave. to stage heavy equipment for the Truman Parkway extension project.

Local residents were surprised last week when a road was cut into the north side of Rt. 204 onto Bethesda land – where the timber was recently harvested by the school – and heavy equipment suddenly appeared.

No building is taking place by Bethesda. No permits have been taken out through the MPC.

Instead, GDOT’s “dirt contractor has leased the space to stage equipment. And, the spot made sense because we will have to be doing work on that intersection anyway, as part of the road widening,” explained David Spear, press secretary for GDOT.

But according to a long-time Whitefield Ave. resident, “it seems like a weird place to build a staging area when we already have so much trouble with that intersection. There are long waits trying to get out across traffic going both east and west,” he said. Residents have wanted a stop light there for years, but GDOT has repeatedly turned the requests down on the state road they control that leads east to Ferguson Ave. and the Skidaway Island area.

“Having large excavation equipment driving up and down what is already a busy road, particularly at rush hours, just doesn’t make sense,” they added. “A lot of times, people don’t even stop at the stop sign coming off of Whitefield onto the 204 Spur because it’s backed up there and the car before you goes, you often just follow along.. If we’re having to wait on heavy equipment and slow moving trucks, it’s going to be a nightmare.”