The Sandersville Downtown Development Authority (DDA) heard a recommendation from Chris Hutchings concerning the downtown square at their Thursday, December 17 meeting.
Hutchings began by saying that his wife teaches student teachers who come from Georgia College to Ridge Road Schools, and one exercise that’s conducted is to provide impressions of the community.
“One thing they talked about is that the downtown area is confusing; they can’t figure out how to maneuver in it,” said Hutchings, noting that the area of confusion is the turn off of Highway 15 by Esquire into the downtown area.
Hutchings recommended reversing the one-way traffic in the downtown area around the Courthouse square.
“This would be fairly easy and very cheap to implement,” said Hutchings.
In his report, Hutchings stated that there are 11 businesses on W. Haynes Street; there are four or five businesses on the Malone Street side.
“We serve 11 businesses on West Haynes Street, and you don’t have a street to get off of a main, high traffic area to them,” said Hutchings.
Hutchings noted that parking along West Haynes Street is also problematic because big trucks block visibility when backing out of the parking spaces.
“You can’t see around them to see people coming from the Deepstep Road way,” said Hutchings. He added, “It’s hard to back out because you can’t see until you back out.”
Hutchings stated that, if the traffic flow was reversed, the angled-parking could be re-lined.
“Or you could get funky like all of the modern cities are doing, and people could back into the spaces,” said Hutchings. “That’s what a lot of cities are doing to be pedestrian-friendly.”
During his presentation, Hutchings also noted that the downtown area lacks crosswalks, which forces pedestrians to jaywalk to businesses on the square.
DDA Chairman Jason Davis explained that a traffic study was completed several years ago.
“It didn’t get a lot of traction at the time because you’d have to redo the whole thing,” said Chairman Davis.
Sandersville DDA didn’t take any action on Hutchings’ recommendations; however, they suggested Hutchings speaking with Sandersville Mayor and Council regarding his ideas.