‘Dead-end debacle’ GPS leads trucks down dead-end road, destroying neighborhood yards

GASTON COUNTY, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — It’s become a dead-end debacle in one Gaston County neighborhood. Constant truck traffic finds its way into the middle of a neighborhood along Azalea Trail only to discover the turn they’re looking for doesn’t exist.

“Well, it just looks kind of trashy,” said Michael Chapman.

Chapman has lived on Cottonwood Drive and Azalea Trail for roughly 30 years. “Trashy” isn’t how he’d typically describe his landscaping.

“I mean, if you’re trying to keep your yard up and, you know, have a decent looking place and then the trucks destroying your yard,” he told Queen City News.

For the past few years, a D.R. Horton home development has been under construction, ushering in all sorts of changes to the area.

“We were waiting on it to be finished,” said neighbor Rick Blanton. “It’s just been all the noise, constant noise. You don’t think about it, but when you hear nail guns going all the time.”

The real issues, however, surround the big rigs delivering siding, sod and all sorts of supplies that are getting routed down Azalea Trail. It doesn’t connect to the new neighborhood, but drivers’ GPS tells them it does.

“We get tractor trailers,  43-, 45-footers come down this narrow road here, and once they get down here, discover that they can’t go through the egress road,” Blanton said.  “They have to back out.”

Doorbell video and pictures show the trucks struggling to reverse course.

“They get mad about the situation,” said Blanton, “and I explain to them that, you know, your company has had other drivers come through many times, and they are aware they have to be aware of this and why they don’t pass the information on to their drivers. You know, it’s beside us. We have no clue.”

They end up leveling mailboxes, putting ruts in people’s yards, and holding up traffic for sometimes ten minutes at a time.

“I guess once they see the people already driving through the yard, they decide to go ahead and do it too,” Chapman said.

The section GPS thinks connects to Azalea Trail used to be woods until the new development started construction.

Pictures show them leveling the trees to make way for a path dedicated to emergency vehicles.

The neighborhood looks like it’s nearing completion, and the headache of big rig turnarounds might come to an end, but that doesn’t stop the other work vehicles from mapping out the quickest route.

“It goes on with Amazon, DoorDash constantly,” Blanton said. “They’re coming up and down the road here and stopping because they think it’s a road that goes through.”

Blanton, who lives across the street has seen it all. He even put up a sign to deter drivers from cutting through, but they still have had people cut the locks off the gate.

At this point, the 30-plus homeowners who live in this once quiet four-street neighborhood are now wondering if it’s just something they will have to get used to.

“They’re just building so many houses, there’s nothing we can say or do,” Chapman said.

Queen City News reached out to the builder, D.R. Horton to see if they have or can relay that message to drivers that the road doesn’t connect to the new neighborhood.

“It appears traffic may be routing incorrectly through this neighboring community via online map application(s). We are sending out a notice to all of our trades reminding them of the correct entrance to use,” a representative of D.R. Horton said. “We will also reach out to the online map provider to request an update in their system to not show this as a connecting road, as it is for emergency/fire access only. In the meantime, ample signage will be put up to provide correct directions to our community.”

Additionally, Google Maps, which shows Rosewood Drive connecting to Azalea Trail, has an option to “edit the map” and “add or fix a road.”

Queen City News submitted a request on behalf of the neighbors.

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