One week after a town hall meeting where city leaders heard from residents of Troup Street, the LaGrange City Council received updates addressing some of those concerns.

The concerns brought up at the town hall ranged from relatively quick projects, like fixing street lights, to long-term projects that will require significantly more time and money, like renovations to the park and requests for a dirt bike park. The updates on Tuesday primarily focused on the short-term projects, like a speed hump, lighting and managing large truck traffic.

“Last Tuesday night, we had a neighborhood meeting with residents of Beltline and Grady Street,” City Manager Meg Kelsey said. “One of the things that was very concerning to the neighbors was the tractor trailer traffic that was coming into Grady Street from Orchard Hill, and they were getting stuck in there. So, the police department looked at that and recommended that we add that to the list of streets that we prohibited tractor trailers on. That will allow us to put up the signs that some of the residents asked us for.”

Mayor Pro-Tem Jim Arrington asked how trucks that previously took that route would turn around, and Dekmar spoke on a proposed solution that would work for both the large truck drivers and residents.

“We had an idea to mark that and prohibit that turn and let them go to the next turn, and I think they can make their deliveries, and it will facilitate them turning out,” Dekmar said. “I think that would be part of the signage once we get the restriction of 18-wheelers.”

Kelsey said that she had looked at the possibility of changing the name of the street to remove confusion for drivers looking for addresses.

“I kicked around the idea that maybe that Orchard Hill segment where people are getting lost to rename that, so that wouldn’t be Orchard Hill,” Kelsey said. “That would all be Grady Street [after Lukken Industrial Drive], so we had talked about that was maybe a possible solution where they wouldn’t make their way into the segment.”

The LaGrange City Council made no move regarding a street renaming on Tuesday, and residents and businesses on the street would be notified prior to a change.

Another possible solution discussed in the meeting to discourage large trucks from accidentally ending up on small residential streets like Grady was to update signage in the industrial park to make it easier to identify businesses.

“It is an industrial park, and we have industrial buildings, but we don’t have any industrial signage to say that, ‘This is the Valway Plant,’ ‘Turn here for Hillside,’” Council Member Nathan Gaskin said. “We just don’t have those kinds of signs, and it would really be helpful because a lot of times you have drivers that pull up that street, and they are actually lost. They have no idea where they are supposed to be going.”

Arrington said that there were some signs, but they had not been updated. Kelsey said that she would discuss updated signage with Scott Malone from the City of LaGrange’s economic development office. Additionally, the LaGrange Police Department has been working to install cameras in parts of the neighborhood where residents have said they were needed.

“About a month ago, we asked IT to run fiber over there, so that we could facilitate cameras, and they did that I think in the last week or so,” Dekmar said. “We have some portable cameras. We’ve got one installed over there.”

The installation of cameras in that area was not part of the city’s original budget for the year, but during the town hall meeting, city council members indicated a willingness to fund the additional expense. The city will also be funding additional light poles and upgrading bulbs in existing poles to offer more light.

“We did a survey of the lighting over there and sent a request to utilities to put additional lights, three poles and also to change out the older lights to LEDs that will provide increased illumination,” Dekmar said.

According to Dekmar, the LPD has also completed a traffic study for a speed hump that was requested in the neighborhood, and the results were submitted to Kelsey on Monday.

“We will continue to work on those and continue to update y’all as we get those completed,” Dekmar said.