HOUSTON COUNTY, Ga. — More families are moving to Houston County, and with them come more cars and more traffic.
Since 2001, Houston County has completed about 60 road projects, but Chairman Tommy Stalnaker says they have more work ahead.
Midday traffic in Houston County can require some patience.
"This is just lunch, but if you look at rush hour, evenings, weekends, especially shopping holidays, it gets absolutely ridiculous," David Trussell said.
Trussell says sometimes it's at a "complete gridlock."
"Byron all the way down to Hawkinsville, everyone comes to this area to shop," Trussell said.
With Houston's incoming businesses, people, and apartments, some people worry the area's road projects won't keep up with the county's growth.
"I can remember if a lot of these improvements had not been made what it would be like today. Do we need to make more improvements? Yes. Will we make more improvements? Yes, and a lot of those improvements have already been discussed, planning, and engineering on," Stalnaker said.
Houston County Chairman Tommy Stalnaker says they have traffic hotspots, including Houston Lake Road and Feagin Mill Road, US 41 and Watson Boulevard, and Moody Road.
"If something's not done with 41 Highway, in my opinion, over the next five to 10 years, it'll be total gridlock. We have got to do something to improve that road," Stalnaker said.
He says, right now, they are working on improving four major sections --Houston Lake Road and Feagin Mill Road, Houston Lake Road, and Lake Joy Road, State Route127, and Carl Vinson Parkway to Houston Road.
"It will take patience in the future, because particular road projects don't happen overnight. It's not that people are ignoring them. They are actually working on a lot of these projects now," Stalnaker said.
"I'm not a traffic engineer. I've been here and I've seen the population growth of 30,000-plus in the past decade and I am sure it's not easy. I'd love to see more economic growth south of Watson Boulevard. You have any entire corridor of Houston Lake going towards Perry that has almost nothing down there. You have Russell Parkway, west of Houston Lake, there is almost nothing down there. Yet, they tore down the Toys-R-Us and built a Chili's and a Chick-fil-A, just adding more traffic congestion into the same area that needs to be relieved of what it already has," Trussell said.
Stalnaker says they also have several planned and long-range projects, too.
That includes a roundabout at Osigian Boulevard and Maggie Drive and widening Thompson Mill Road and Elberta Road to Houston Lake Boulevard.
"You have to have a funding source to be able to build. We already have our eyes on some potential funding sources. Obviously, the SPLOST, the sales tax at a future date would be one possibility; the State of Georgia would be another possibility because some of these roads are state roads that we are talking about doing," Stalnaker said.
Stalnaker says some of the roads they want to improve, including Watson Boulevard, are state highways and roads.
They must get approval from the Georgia Department of Transportation before moving forward.
According to the Census, Houston's population grew by about 24,000 people from 2010 to 2020.