No set time frame for GDOT-recommended road improvements
It’s long been known as Gilmer County’s Apple Alley, but a large number of car crashes has made Highway 52 East a frequent destination not only for travelers and tourists, but also emergency response vehicles.
One of the latest accidents on the busy section of state highway running through Gilmer County happened Wednesday, July 26, near R&A Orchards and the Ridgemont Drive intersection.
According to the Gilmer County Sheriff’s Office, the wreck involved two vehicles, an SUV and a Chevy pickup truck, both traveling eastbound. The SUV was stopped behind another vehicle, which was waiting to turn into the applehouse. The pickup topped the hill, was unable to stop and collided into the rear of the SUV.
A triage scene was established, and five medical transport helicopters were called to the scene, according to a Gilmer County Fire and Rescue report. Six people were transported for injuries sustained in the crash — one by ambulance and five by helicopter — to Erlanger Hospital in Chattanooga, Tenn., and Wellstar Kennestone Hospital in Marietta.
Pickens and Dawson County provided emergency management assistance, while Georgia State Patrol and the Gilmer Sheriff’s Office were among police agencies that worked the wreck. The highway was blocked while the accident scene was cleared.
Capt. Frank Copeland, of the Gilmer Sheriff’s Office, said units were dispatched to approximately 48 accidents on Highway 52 East in the last 12 months. The majority of crashes occurred between Turniptown Road and Big Creek Road.
Mark Chastain, Gilmer Deputy Fire Chief, said car accidents on 52 East are pretty common, but more usually occur during the fall apple season.
“I’ve been full time here for 15 years, and we’ve always had wrecks on 52. There’s a lot of traffic on that road. It’s a very congested area, and the more people you have out there, the more accidents you have,” he added. “Gilmer County is cut in half, north and south by Highway 515, and east and west by Highway 52. You’ve got the alternate (route), Highway 282, that takes a lot of traffic off 52 West. But, on 52 East, we always have accidents because that’s your main thoroughfare between I-85 to 75. It’s your main cut-through at this point in the state, and that’s where you get a lot of traffic coming through.”
Allen Triebel, a former director at the Gilmer Community Food Pantry who still volunteers there, said he’s been concerned for years about excessive speeding on the highway which, for several miles, expands to a three-lane with two lanes on one side and a single lane on the opposite side.
“Our building vibrates when chicken trucks go by at 70 miles an hour,” Triebel said. “We have a large metal sign on our property that says our hours. Trucks blow that sign over with their speed and the wind generated when they go by.”
The food pantry is less than half a mile from where the July 26 crash occurred. The blaring sirens of ambulances and police cars whizzing past the building on their way to wrecks are heard often by those who volunteer there, Triebel noted.
“A few weeks ago, a car ran out of the road, and the road was blocked for about an hour,” he added. In 2021, a car left the road and crashed into the pantry’s storage building during a morning rainstorm, narrowly missing a volunteer. It was early on a Wednesday, the same day food pantry volunteers distribute food to clients.
“That was the first time we’ve ever been closed for anything other than weather or a Christmas or New Year’s holiday,” said Triebel.
Fortunately, there weren’t any fatalities from that accident. If it had been the warehouse and office where most of the volunteer work is done, who knows what would’ve happened, noted Triebel.
“The pantry (building) was actually hit once before back when it was a garden center. If a car or a tractor-trailer came off the road and hit us on a Wednesday, we’d have dozens of fatalities,” he said.
Along with its curves and hills, the road has a few other attributes that contribute to accidents. Stop signs and red lights are few or nonexistent until the East Ellijay intersection with First Avenue. On a curvy section near the food pantry, there’s no shoulder or guardrails, Triebel noted.
Installing guardrails and possibly a blinking caution sign to slow cars approaching the “S curve” between Brett Dickey Memorial Drive and Ridgemont Drive are among proposals the food pantry has made to the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT). Triebel communicated with former House Speaker David Ralston and the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) for more than a year trying to get them to take a closer look at making changes to the road.
“I have long believed (this) section of 52 East to be one of the county’s most dangerous sections of highway,” Triebel said.
In 2021, GDOT conducted a traffic study on the section of road from Brett Dickey Memorial Drive to Ridgemont Drive. The same year, a head-on collision on that studied segment of road resulted in a fatality, according to the GDOT report.
Recommended short-term solutions in the GDOT study include lowering the 50 mph speed limit to 45 mph for eastbound and westbound traffic, installing merge arrows and various lane end/ merging signs and installing “Vehicles Entering Highway” signs west of R&A Orchards and east of Ridgemont Drive.
Recommended long-term solutions include straightening the S curve to improve sight distance and installing left turn lanes at R&A Orchards and Ridgemont Drive to reduce the number of rear-end collisions.
When asked about a timeline for any of these improvements, the GDOT District 6 office said some of them, including straightening the S curve and putting in the two turn lanes, are on their agenda, but there’s no set timeframe for when they might be implemented.
They’re still in the project development stage, said Joe Schulman, GDOT District 6 representative.
Two more car accidents occurred on Highway 52 East Sunday, Aug. 6, according the Gilmer Sheriff’s Office.
One accident occurred near Brett Dickey Memorial Drive and the other near Stanley’s convenience store at Roy Road. No significant injuries were reported in either incident.