The road that changed Snellville forever…

20 years ago, a new Road opened up in Gwinnett County.  It’s goal was to provide residents in the southern & eastern parts of Gwinnett County with quicker access to the northwestern part of the county with access to I-85 & Gwinnett Place Mall via Pleasant Hill Road—the then “Mall in Gwinnett”.  It would also be a limited access highway, meaning there were only a handful of roads that you could use to access the new road between Snellville & Lilburn.  Construction began in earnest on this Cross-County Highway in the early 1990s, even though the southernmost part of the road existed as early as 1987.  As it approached Phase I completion in August of 1994 (from Scenic Highway to Lawrenceville Highway), the Road would get a new name—the Ronald Reagan Parkway.  When it opened, Snellville would be permanently altered.

When my family first moved out to Snellville in 1979, it was pretty clear that U.S. 78 was the main road in town.  Every major store was compressed into an area between Hewitt Rd. on the West side of Town & 124 on the East Side.  Yes, Churches and Schools were further East, but really what existed in the town for shopping & eating was compressed into about one mile along W. Main St.  When the Snellville Days Parade would take place on the first Saturday of May, that section of U.S. 78 would shut down for the Parade.  The population was relatively small in those days, and most people knew each other.

As the years progressed, the town got bigger, and new stores were added on the East Side and West Side, but most of the stores still were close to U.S. 78.  Sure, there was a Bi-Lo & Revco on the North Side of town, but most places still stayed close to 78.  124 was mostly farmland to the north & wooded down towards Centerville.  Even as the town added a new Hospital, it was clear everything flowed from West to East—a product of the fact that people would use 78 from Atlanta to get to Athens for UGA football games every Saturday in the fall.  Wal-Mart, Richway (later Target), and Kroger’s were just a few of the new stores that came on the scene in the 1980s—all along Main St.

There were issues with the main traffic in Snellville traveling West to East.  When Gwinnett Place Mall opened in 1984, getting to Gwinnett’s Mall from Snellville was a task and a half.  For most people, the most direct route to the Mall involved taking Oak Road to River Drive west, then North on Lester Rd, which became Pleasant Hill Road just past U.S. 29.  On a good day, that drive was at least half an hour to 45 minutes.

The other problem was that accessing I-85 from Snellville was not easy.  Again, back roads were the way to get North to the Interstate, with the most direct route taking you far NE of Atlanta—not good if you were trying to go to Buckhead or other Northern Atlanta suburbs.

These were the main issues that the Reagan set to address.  But something else happened.  As the Reagan began to take shape, development began to take shape on the north side of town.  The Reagan would end at the intersection of 124 & Pinehurst Road, a neighborhood road that connected the north side of Snellville with Rt. 84 and Grayson.  So, developers wanted to put new shops & stores near the end of the Reagan.  Anchoring the new Shopping center would be a Target… which would move from the West Side of Town to the North Side… along with Publix Grocery Stores, and a few additional stores new to Snellville.  When the Presidential Marketplace Shopping Center Opened Later in 1994, a chain reaction of development began to follow North.  New Shopping Centers would be built.  Stores like Belk’s, Best Buy, Home Depot, Lowe’s, and Old Navy came to town.  Restaurants like Texas Roadhouse, O’Charley’s, and Steak n Shake appeared on the North Side.  Kroger’s left downtown Snellville to move North along 124.  The Hospital also moved north of town.  Wal-Mart would move North in 1999.  Wendy’s moved from their West Side Location to the North.  McDonald’s opened 2 places on the North Side.  Chick-Fil-A added a Northside location.  And so on, and so on, and so on.

Today’s Main Street in Snellville on both sides is littered with either empty facades or buildings that have change businesses multiple times.  Hardee’s is gone, Pizza Hut has moved to Oak Road, and the old Fountain Square Shopping Center is largely a ghost town.  Almost all of the Growth in town is in areas that 30 years ago was either farmland or full of trees.  The Reagan has brought Atlanta closer to Snellville.  But it has been at a steep cost.  Traffic has increased exponentially, particularly on Scenic Hwy from Lawrenceville southward.  When I visited Snellville during Thanksgiving last year, traffic at 6:30 in the evening was a pain in the butt to navigate through 124 just a mile from my parent’s home.  The small town suburb feel Snellville once had is gone replaced by hustle & bustle.  There are new homes popping up everywhere.  Crime has increased and gangs now openly roam Snellville Middle & South Gwinnett High Schools.  The families that were once there in the 1980s have largely left with only stragglers like my parents staying behind.  One day, Pinehurst Road will be widened, much to the opposition of those who live off its road.  It’s no longer a question of if anymore.  My parents and others can only hold it off for so long.

Snellville will never again be what it once was.  It has evolved.  Whether you think for the better or worse is your personal opinion.  But a lot of that evolution has to do with the introduction of the Ronald Reagan Parkway.  And that may be the road’s everlasting legacy.

The IOC cozying up to Putin…

There are so many issues with the Winter Olympics that are beginning in Sochi, Russia.  The venues may be the only thing that is ready for the games.  Sleeping quarters in Sochi have become a laughingstock.  Reporters are tweeting about everything from dual toilets that you cannot put TP in to yellow drinking water to no door knobs.  Hackers are having a field day going after every electronic mobile device (it is Russia, after all).  And did I mention the close proximity to world’s biggest tinder box for terrorist activity, the Caucuses?  And then there is this little Russian anti-gay law that seems to be generating a lot of controversy… so much so that the IOC finally spoke up about it this week.

Now, you would think that a global organization like the IOC might actually look at how the world is progressing and decide that gay rights might be something to back against Russian President Putin’s wishes.  Or, at the very least, they would choose to say nothing about the issue, especially with the other problems plaguing Sochi.  Well, Thomas Bach and Dick Pound of the IOC gave everyone a rude awakening to those thoughts.  Bach took aim at the President all right… at the U.S. President, Barack Obama.  President Obama’s crime?  A mild passive-aggressive approach to not attend the Winter Olympics and sending a delegation that includes three high-profile openly gay athletes (one of those, athletes Billie Jean King, has had to withdraw at the last minute due to an ailing mother).  Bach thinks that politics should not be put above athletic competition and slammed President Obama from not including himself or Vice President Biden in the delegation.  Yes, let’s not include politics in the Games, something that has shown up in EVERY single Olympic Games—at least since 1936.

Memo to Thomas Bach:  This isn’t 1980.  At least the U.S. is competing this time in Russia.  They are sending a full team.  There has been no formal protest sent about Russia’s anti-gay policy.  The U.S. just chose to not send their top VIPs and included some athletes to prove the point that it doesn’t matter; that if you are good enough, you can attend the games, regardless of race, creed, religion, or sexual orientation.  And, apparently, that’s the biggest problem of these games, according to Thomas Bach.

But it’s not only Thomas Bach who feels this way in the IOC.  Dick Pound—yes, the same guy that used to head up the World Anti-Doping Agency—had to weigh in to USA Today… 

"That's a foreign policy response to a major power; I don't think they thought it through… I think they were tone deaf on it. This is the United States of America's response to an issue that is not very much under control in the United States either? I thought it was an unfortunate response and frankly not fair to the members of the delegation…  You have the chardonnay folks, sipping, saying, 'This is an issue for me.' Sip. 'And I want you to go over there and be my soldiers.' Sip. 'I'll be watching it on television with another glass of chardonnay,' … It's kind of cheap.”

The IOC has clearly decided to throw their support behind the suave Mr. Putin in the hopes of not looking foolish for even giving Sochi the Winter Olympics in the first place.  And if they have to go so far as to ignore all the problems Sochi has and focus on political controversies, so be it.

Look, I will not carry the water for the pro-gay rights group in this debate (memo to VU Alums Ryan Arnold, Ben Nichols, & Kate Hahn:  Are you going to engage or is this your Month off?).  But in the end, the IOC will have to return to countries whose opinions on gay rights are more in favor of supporting those rights than opposing.  Bach & Pound may be figuring short-term benefits for supporting Putin may outweigh the longer-term damage the IOC may inflict on itself.  They may have miscalculated badly, especially if these Sochi games run into major problems…