Community Q&A: What non-road widening options (sidewalks, bike lanes, safe streets) would you fund and prioritize?
At our Turn Up the Volume Woodstock Town Hall on September 17, neighbors asked about alternatives to endless road widening:
Q: What non-road widening options (sidewalks, bike lanes, safe streets) would you fund and prioritize?
A:
We all know widening roads doesn’t solve everything. Sometimes it just brings more cars and more traffic. Real relief comes when people have safe, practical alternatives to driving everywhere for everything.
Woodstock has already made progress: the Greenprints trail system is a great example of how trails can double as both recreation and transportation. Just look at the trail connections into downtown: families use them daily to walk to shops, restaurants, and events without touching their car. That’s proof this works when we invest in it.
Here’s what I’d prioritize next:
Fill the sidewalk gaps. Too many sidewalks end suddenly along busy roads like Towne Lake Parkway, Highway 92, and Arnold Mill. We should connect those missing pieces so people can walk safely to schools, parks, and shopping instead of dodging traffic.
Safe routes for kids. No parent should have to drive a block because walking isn’t safe. That means better crosswalks, lighting, and slower speeds around schools like Mill Creek Middle and Woodstock Elementary.
Expand trails as transportation. Greenprints has shown its value, and now we need more east–west connectors so neighborhoods can link directly into downtown, the Outlet corridor, and parks. Trails aren’t just “nice-to-have”; they take cars off the road when they connect homes to destinations.
Bike- and pedestrian-friendly street design. When new roads are built, let’s design them from the start with bike lanes, sidewalks, and safe crossings. In plain terms: plan for people, not just cars. Retrofitting later costs more.
Slower, safer neighborhood streets. Speed humps, small roundabouts, and narrowed lanes can reduce cut-through speeding. Roundabouts have been shown to reduce crashes and improve safety, which is why Woodstock’s plan calls for more of them, including at key intersections like Neese and Arnold Mill. We should bring the same approach into neighborhoods where speeding is a real risk.
Smart use of funds. These improvements can be funded with a mix of SPLOST transportation dollars, GDOT partnership funds, and developer impact fees. In other words: we don’t need to raise your property taxes to make sidewalks and trails happen; we need to prioritize them with the money already flowing in.
Yes, it takes coordination with GDOT and time to build. But the alternative — more cars, more gridlock, and fewer safe options — costs us far more in the long run.
Traffic isn’t just about moving cars — it’s about moving people. Sidewalks, bike lanes, and safe streets are traffic solutions too.
