MARIETTA - Some road projects, such as one raised Monday night, are so bad they don't even warrant being studied, Councilman Johnny Sinclair said.

He was referring to the so-called Powder Springs Connector, a proposal that would connect Powder Springs Street near Chestnut Hill to South Cobb Drive near Chattahoochee Technical College.

The topic was raised at Monday's City Council work session because the Atlanta Regional Commission is asking the city to update its list of future road projects so the ARC can plug those projects into a model to ensure that traffic conforms with federal air quality guidelines. If the city expects to apply for federal funding for any future road project, it must first meet federal air quality regulations, said city engineer Jim Wilgus.

Yet Sinclair and other council members saw two road projects they wanted removed from the ARC list. Council will vote to officially remove them from the ARC planning list at Wednesday's council meeting. One is the aforementioned Powder Springs Connector.

"It would funnel traffic straight into residential areas and those residential areas do not want any more traffic," Sinclair said of the proposed $15 million road.

The other proposal Sinclair wants removed from the ARC list is the so-called Gresham Road Connector, which would link the Gresham Road area by the Mansour Center out to the Sawyer Road/Allgood Road area, a couple of miles projected to cost more than $30 million, Wilgus said.

"It bulldozes through a bunch of green space, and I think that other roads already exist to take care of that problem, whether they be the North Loop or Sandy Plains or Allgood Road and Scufflegrit," Sinclair said.

At the beginning of the council's work session, former Mayor Bill Dunaway asked to speak, urging the council to keep the Powder Springs Connector on the ARC list. Dunaway said Marietta voters approved the connector when they approved the 2005 Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax.

"Please don't tell me that voters were not well informed," Dunaway said.

Dunaway believes the connector would help traffic congestion caused by the 50,000 cars he says pass in front of the Hilton Marietta Conference Center every day.

The city earmarked $1.8 million for the Powder Springs Connector in its 2005 SPLOST. County commissioners also set aside $1.8 million for it. Other funding from the state or federal government was being counted on, but never arrived. So last summer, council voted to transfer the $1.8 million earmarked for the project to street improvements in front of the Hilton, leaving $1,000 in funding for the connector, since city attorney Doug Haynie said the line item could not be removed from the SPLOST list.

Like Dunaway, Councilwoman Annette Lewis argued in favor of leaving the road projects on the ARC list, saying they would only be used for "modeling purposes." Councilman Philip Goldstein said he didn't see any harm in leaving them on the list either, since the more information the city had about potential future roads, the better.

But Sinclair said allowing them to remain on the ARC list was the first step toward approving projects he opposed.

"My experience has always been that with a road project, if you let it begin in any way, if you ask to have a study done, you've started the road project's march, you've started the process," Sinclair said.

Council members Van Pearlberg and Lewis asked to be listed on Wednesday's agenda as opposing the move to cut the two road projects from the ARC list. Pearlberg echoed Dunaway, worrying about a promise made to the voters in the 2005 SPLOST.