Milton City Council Mulls Roundabout Programs, Lighting, Landscaping

MILTON, GA — Milton’s City Council offered direction Monday night on two items related to roundabouts: one for landscaping and lighting at Freemanville and Birmingham roads, the other potentially launching an “adopt-a-roundabout” program.

The roundabout items were the final two in the Work Session. The first related to a proposal to create an “adopt-a-roundabout” program in the same spirit of the “adopt-a-roundabout” program in which volunteers from civic organizations, school groups, families and businesses clean up debris along Milton roadways.

An objective in Milton’s Strategic Plan calls for exploring the creation of an “adopt-a-roundabout” program “for citizens to further beautify roundabouts around the city.” Monday’s presentation was an opportunity to delve into key parameters for such a program, pose pertinent questions, and get the city council’s feedback.

Public Works Director Sara Leaders said that her department would oversee such a program, just as it handles the planning, installation, and maintenance of roundabout plantings and potentially art already. Milton currently has seven roundabouts on local roads and three on state routes, with three more roundabouts in the works.

Leaders recommended that, if this program is adopted, there should be certain special requirements for “adopting” a center island for safety reasons as well as requiring the city to sign off on the removal of any existing plantings or items and, similarly, the addition of anything new.

There was also discussion as to whether members of the public could participate or if only professionals, namely landscapers, should participate.

Council members and city staff had an exchange of ideas that ended with general support for such a program, even with the acknowledgement that many details still need to be ironed out.

Right after that concluded, City Engineering Project Manager Rob Del-Ross laid out a proposal for the landscaping and lighting around a roundabout at Freemanville and Birmingham roads.

This plan called for minimal lighting requirements, as specified by the Georgia Department of Transportation, to meet safety needs and in line with most of Milton’s other roundabouts. Del-Ross also laid out a landscaping plan including a mound in the center, native plantings, and an oak tree in the middle.

The Council seemed open to the lighting plan. Members Jan Jacobus and Paul Moore expressed a preference for artwork in the middle of the island rather than the oak tree, with Moore saying that equestrian-themed art could be especially fitting given the horse farms in the immediate vicinity.

The city council is next scheduled to convene at a Meeting on April 25.