TIFTON — Local residents frustrated with increased truck traffic near their houses expressed their concerns over the issue at the Tift County Board of Commissioners’ most recent meeting.

Irritated by the increased activity of semi-trucks along Jordan Road, a handful of residents living along or near the road took part in the public comments segment of the April 10 meeting to voice their frustrations and request action from the commissioners.

Barbara Harben, a resident of the new subdivision in the area, Stone Haven, reported that the road, an offshoot of U.S. Highway 319, had seen increased activity from semi-trucks in the past few months. Homes like hers, whose backyards faced Jordan Road and were only around 100 feet from the road, had to deal with regular noise, vibrations, and soot from the trucks as they passed by.

She said that she and several of her neighbors had written letters to the commissioners requesting their assistance the previous month, but that in the time between then and now the problem had only worsened, with the semi-trucks now attempting U-turns along Jordan to return to their routes.

Harben expressed deep concern with this development and the danger it posed to children in the area, noting that school buses driving along 319 often took that road and that she had witnessed trucks making U-turns around the same time a bus would be in the area. She speculated the issue would only worsen down the line with more than 100 homes being occupied in the area within the next few months.

She provided the commissioners with a map of the area, outlining the sites of U-turning trucks, the entrance and egress of the subdivisions in the area, and an area where the trucks were pulling off onto the side of the road, and pleaded with them to put a stop to the semi traffic before someone was hurt.

Sharon Wagner echoed Harben’s sentiments, adding that semi-trucks had even been passing through late at night and that she had seen children playing on or going out into the road in question to retrieve their toys.

She argued that the trucks had plenty of access to both 319 and I-75 without needing to use Jordan Road, and suggested the county install signage directing these drivers to do so.

Sympathizing with the residents’ plight, District 1 commissioner Donnie Hester felt something should be done, proposing the installation of a wall between the subdivision and the road to help block out the sound. However, county manager Jim Carter noted that they would need to determine if they had jurisdiction to do so in the first place, uncertain if the area was maintained by the county or by the Georgia Department of Transportation.

District 3 commissioner Paul Webb recounted his own difficulties with attempting to enlist the aid of the Department of Transportation in barring semi-trucks from a road near a residential area in the past, stressing that as long as the truck was under the road’s weight limit and was up to code, there was little that could be done to keep it off the road.

Carter admitted he was unsure to what extent the county would be able to remedy the issue, if any, but agreed to do what he could to look into the matter.