Notorious Liberty County intersection traps residents, churchgoers

Adeline Nelson’s home in Midway’s McIntosh community sits across the street from the 164-year-old St. Peter’s African Methodist Episcopal Church on U.S. Highway 84 and East Oglethorpe Highway. Dangerous traffic, she says, means it often takes five minutes or more to get in or out of her driveway. 

Parishioners at St. Peter’s have the same problem navigating the thousands of vehicles that race along the intersection of East Oglethorpe and Leroy Coffer highways (also known as State Route 196), two minor arteries that connect Liberty County to I-95.

Between both driveways is a striped area where two left-turn lanes onto Leroy Coffer begin. The center turning lane on East Oglethorpe ends before those driveways, giving no safe entry or exit for turning left on East Oglethorpe.

In 2022 alone, 135 car accidents occurred at the intersection, according to the latest data available by the Georgia Department of Transportation, a rate of more than 2 ½ per week. Between 2018 and 2022, GDOT logged seven wrecks between Nelson’s house and St. Peter A.M.E. — one of which killed a person. 

“Always, every, every week seems like we have a wreck, and I feel like it’s their responsibility, because they did not design it right,” Nelson said. “I’m just a little old Negro Black woman sitting here saying, ‘Why couldn’t we have it a little better?’”

Audio: June 17, 2024, meeting

After more than a decade of complaints falling on deaf ears, Nelson and her church neighbors succeeded in getting local and state officials to listen to their traffic worries at a meeting called by State Rep. Al Williams on June 17.

In attendance for the discussion held at the Dorchester Academy were members of the Liberty Consolidated Development Authority Board, including Williams (the board’s chair), Liberty County Chairman Donald Lovette, Vice Chairwoman Linda Carter Ray, and Willa Dixon Lewis (secretary). Lewis, who is a parishioner at St. Paul’s, called for enhanced traffic safety along the stretch of road at a time when the development authority is intent on building warehouses and light industry at a rapid pace. Representing GDOT was Williams’ former Georgia House colleague, Ann R. Purcell, now vice-chair of the State Transportation Board of Georgia. 

Part of the safety problems residents and church-goers face, according to Lewis, is the red light that allows a right on red onto East Oglethorpe after drivers make a full stop. That makes it impossible to turn into the first driveway at the church, because tailgating drivers make the turn without stopping. 

The lack of turn lanes adds to safety worries — as well as inconvenience for St. Paul’s aging congregation, she said. Without a safe way to merge into traffic moving east, church members must turn right, drive to the Oglethorpe Highway overpass at the CSX railroad track, make another right at the abandoned convenience store, another right near the Silver Dollar strip club, get over quickly to the left turn lane on Leroy Coffer Highway, then wait a few more minutes for the light to change to turn left onto Oglethorpe. Drivers must always keep to the right of such stripes, according to the Georgia Department of Driver Services.

Nelson, who also attended the meeting, repeated some of the complaints she has tried to put before the state transportation agency for years. A key problem for her family is how traffic makes school bus stops unsafe for her granddaughter.

Wrecks ‘just about every week’

Between 2006 and 2012, East Oglethorpe was widened from two lanes to four and yellow stripes were painted to funnel drivers into two left turn lanes onto Leroy Coffer as a safety measure. Both Nelson’s and St. Peter’s driveways are perpendicular to the stripes. 

The latest GDOT traffic counts from 2022 show 21,100 vehicles use Leroy Coffer and 29,400 use East Oglethorpe near the intersection. 

“They have a wreck out here just about every week,” Nelson told The Current. “A few weeks ago, they had a car fire.” She says the victim had to be airlifted.

Put it in writing

Purcell and Williams urged residents to write GDOT with their concerns, whether as individual letters, one letter signed by several people, or a petition. “If we don’t know how things are affecting you, we can’t make a difference,” Purcell said.

She addressed the county’s rampant growing pains: “It’s absolutely unreal what we are experiencing in growth in our infrastructure,” she said. “You see it here. You see exactly what’s going on and how it has affected every one of our lives, our families’ lives, the areas in which we live.” 

Purcell also talked about the impact of the Hyundai Metaplant on Liberty County development, recent federal funding for the Hinesville bypass from Walthourville to I-95 to reroute heavy truck traffic, and thanked Williams and other legislators for passing $250 million for locally-managed projects. 

“I call it ‘free money’,” she said, “because you don’t have to make the match. You don’t have to come up with our share locally.” That money, she added, was for “the supplies that have gone up and the expense that is required. You know, people don’t understand that.”

What about the residents?

But local residents were more interested in specific impacts.

Realtor and community activist Mark Mosely said that his mother, Dorothy, lives next door to Nelson, and that it’s hard for her to cross in heavy traffic: “Just turning into her home coming from basic places, especially from Midway, it’s very difficult for her and Miss Adeline.”

Nelson said GDOT has ignored the problem. 

“So it came to a point, after we came here to a meeting with the commissioner and Marion (Stephens, District 1 commissioner), and it all came up again.”

A few weeks ago, she said, she had contacted Williams “because something needs to be done….Everybody that goes to Hinesville or comes to Hinesville sees the big problem.”

Williams said, “She’s exactly right. She came to me and inquired, and I’ll be very frank with Ann. When I went to (Nelson’s) house to visit with her, it gave me a vivid understanding, because I couldn’t hardly turn into her house. It was quite dangerous,” adding that Lewis and other members of St. Peter’s “can’t hardly get to that church or leave church.” 

Lewis said she would be late to Vacation Bible School because of the meeting, but that she had to convey the church’s concerns: “I think I can speak for every member of St. Peter’s A.M.E. Church and the surrounding community. We are a close-knit community, and it is dangerous, yes.” 

Purcell promised the audience she would meet with them again for an update and reiterated the importance of writing down their concerns so she could take them to the state.

Speaking to The Current before the meeting, Nelson was pessimistic about any changes. She says her experience shows that county and state officials don’t work together. 

She said her tenacity is the only reason why officials were paying attention to the dangerous situation now.

“To me, Al Williams could have jumped on this problem a long time ago, ‘ cause he see how it is,” Nelson said. “I’m not trying to be mean or out of order, but sometimes it seems to me that people don’t think about you until you keep presenting it to them. And you’re an elected representative, you’ve seen all the situations, so why haven’t you jumped on it? You know it’s there.”

At the Board of Commissioners’ June 20 meeting, Stephens called for the county to send a letter to Williams about traffic issues.

County Engineer Trent Long, who said bids are about to go out to restripe roads around the county, told The Current those plans do not include redoing the stripes in between Nelson’s and St. Peter A.M.E.’s driveways.

Methods:

We interviewed people directly affected by the striping at driveways, researched traffic counts and accidents at and near the intersection of East Oglethorpe and Leroy Coffer, attended public meetings, and drove into and out of the driveways in question. We also photographed views from the striping and the driveways (wearing safety gear) and used a drone to capture aerial views.

Type of Story: Explainer

Provides context or background, definition and detail on a specific topic.