By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
FEB. 11, 2020 | We’ve got too much government. People in both political camps can agree on this. It’s the way you go about governing that divides us.
The question is where you put your emphasis on what government should do.
There are essential governmental functions for me:
- Fire, police and safety functions? Yes.
- Public schools? Yes.
- Public Parks and Recreation? Yes.
- Public transportation? Yes, highways, rail and buses.
- Health care for all? Yes.
- Public funds for private schools? No.
- Governmental-forced religious liberty? No.
- To discriminate? No.
- How to use one’s body? No.
Most of us can add to this list, pro and con.
But what we don’t want to see in government is waste and inefficiency. And certainly we see too much of that, of public funds spent in often useless ways, or on unimportant and petty projects of elected officials, often benefiting themselves in some way, or helping their friends.
What set me off was a new traffic light being installed in Peachtree Corners.
Ever since the founding of Technology Park back in the 70s, the three-way intersection of Technology Parkway and Technology Parkway South has flowed traffic through this area smoothly. That’s nearly 50 years! While these are two key streets in this development, neither are major commuter arterial streets like Peachtree Industrial Boulevard or Peachtree Parkway.
The intersection has relatively little traffic. I’ve never seen more than 4-5 cars backed up there awaiting movement. The vehicles take their turns either going straight, or turning left or right. I’ve never seen an accident there. There are few people walking at this location.
But now the City of Peachtree Corners has erected an “advanced” traffic signal there. The city said in a release: “The new traffic signal not only provides an improvement to the intersection in terms of traffic delay and pedestrian safety, it will also provide new opportunities for future smart city technologies development and deployment.” Horsefeathers! That’s not an intersection where there is delay.
There is something new and different at this intersection. It is along this route that Curiosity Lab, the city’s real-world test track environment, runs. That’s the area in use for the driverless car that is tested along the route of Technology Parkway. But that unit runs so seldom that in all our driving on that street, we have seen it in use only once or twice.
That’s not enough use to install a modern traffic light. The city says: “The new signal will create a place to test topics such as optimized cycle times, vehicle detection radar, pedestrian sensors and application interfaces, connected and autonomous vehicles, traffic counting devices and much more.” Again, we say “Horsefeathers.” All that logic can take place without an expensive traffic signal.
The contractor’s fee was approximately $73,000 for the light.
The new signal installation seeks to tackle a problem that has never existed at this location. The addition of the Curiosity Lab routing has not added to the congestion, nor caused the need for the traffic lights. It’s simply government solving a problem that did not exist, and therefore, a waste of money.
Also consider this: with motorists already creating no problem in going through the intersection, will the addition of traffic lights, with their stop-and-go functions as the lights change, maybe cause more problems than not having lights there!
This installation of traffic lights on this non-mainline route is a waste of public monies. We’ve got too much government.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
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