I-385 (New Loop Around Atlanta) (Decatur, Blue Ridge: low income, university, income)

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by billl

Only one. And he (she?) is easy to avoid.

The rolling eyes can hypnotize you, tho. Be very careful...

BAWK!!

[Mossberg]

New Sugarloaf Parkway Segment Opens To Traffic.

Gwinnett | New Sugarloaf Parkway segment opens to traffic

Gwinnett is doing their part to create their segment of an outer perimeter. They are completing this freeway at a rapid pace since starting it in 2007. We just need the other counties to get on board and create their own portions to connect with it.

I might go for a ride on the new segment today....

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by rcsteiner

The rolling eyes can hypnotize you, tho. Be very careful...

BAWK!!

Unlike the Millennium Arch the Big Chicken is in the perfect location.

[southman]

any updates or news? we can dream of a 485........

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by southman

any updates or news? we can dream of a 485........

Sorry, but the Outer Perimeter concept is effectively dead because no one in state government wants to touch it with a 1,000-foot-pole.

[toll_booth]

Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll

Sorry, but the Outer Perimeter concept is effectively dead because no one in state government wants to touch it with a 1,000-foot-pole.

I would have said that until last week's snowmagheddon. I guarantee you that at least some people want trucks to have a way to bypass the metro area.

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by toll_booth

I would have said that until last week's snowmagheddon. I guarantee you that at least some people want trucks to have a way to bypass the metro area.

Nobody in Georgia's state government wants any part of the Outer Perimeter/Northern Arc (a wildly-unpopular road that got the long-ruling and once ultra-powerful Georgia Democrats booted from power after over 130 years of rule over Georgia's state government and political scene).

Remember, the now-supermajority Georgia Republicans got into power largely in part by campaigning against the road in 2002 and those supermajority Republicans, who are now getting increasingly-nervous over the state's fast-changing demographics, are not going to want to back anything that could cause them to lose power at the onset of an era where they are likely going to automatically struggle just to keep power moving forward.

Also remember that one of the (many) major reasons why the 2012 T-SPLOST went down is because voters mistakenly thought that it was a backdoor way to resurrect the Northern Arc (...the Sierra Club, which is much more powerful than they appear, opposed the T-SPLOST because of the presence of the 316-PIB portion of Sugarloaf Parkway extension, which is proposed to run in the right-of-way of the erstwhile-Outer Perimeter/Northern Arc, on the project list).

You are very correct that some people (many people) want trucks to have a way to bypass the area (which is why GDOT is currently widening GA 20 to 4 lanes between Sugar Hill and Cumming and is proposing to widen GA 20 to 4 lanes between Cumming and Canton...it's not the Northern Arc or Outer Perimeter but that is all that the public will let them get away with), but after repeated angry public pushback against the Outer Perimeter/Northern Arc concept, the state wants nothing more to do with it.

(...In addition to angry public pushback to attempts to build any parts of the road in 1999, 2002 and in the 2012 T-SPLOST, GDOT also briefly floated the idea of resurrecting the Northern Arc farther to the north out away from Atlanta in 2007 (to the north of Lake Lanier) but had to quickly abandon that idea because proposing to run the road farther to the north through the heavily-wooded high foothills and low mountain ranges of the Southern Appalachians just seemed to place the road even deeper in the wheelhouse of the opposition which is led by anti-road environmentalists (both of the politically left-leaning tree-hugger variety and of the more politically centrist and right-leaning hunting, fishing, camping and hiking variety)).

If anything, amongst those not ideologically opposed to the concept of transit outside of the far political right, Snow Jam '14 seemed to have somewhat furthered the cause for an expansion of the region's severely-limited rail transit network, mainly because people who had the option of riding a train had far-less delay in getting home than those who did not have the rail transit option and did not get home from work until the next day.

[neil0311]

Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll

Nobody in Georgia's state government wants any part of the Outer Perimeter/Northern Arc (a wildly-unpopular road that got the long-ruling and once ultra-powerful Georgia Democrats booted from power after over 130 years of rule over Georgia's state government and political scene).

Remember, the now-supermajority Georgia Republicans got into power largely in part by campaigning against the road in 2002 and those supermajority Republicans, who are now getting increasingly-nervous over the state's fast-changing demographics, are not going to want to back anything that could cause them to lose power at the onset of an era where they are likely going to automatically struggle just to keep power moving forward.

I wasn't living here then. Why was it so unpopular?

It seems to me that this is one of the ways to alleviate potential congestion on I-285 as well as surface roads that can get some congestion during rush hour. When I travel to Gwinnett, I either have to get on I-285 or take Rte 120 and wind my way through Roswell, Alpharetta, Johns Creek, and Duluth.

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by neil0311

I wasn't living here then. Why was it so unpopular?

Well how long do you have? lol!

The short of it is that the Outer Perimeter (which was later shortened to just the Northern Arc because of building public opposition in the late '90's) was so unpopular because the public thought that road was just a tool for developers to create more sprawl and overdevelopment which would just in turn make traffic even worse than it already was in the early 2000's...that was basically the public consensus amongst the different groups and constituencies which came together to defeat the road.

The long of it is that opposition to the road was multi-layered and even somewhat complex with multiple constituencies each having their own reasons for opposing the road, opposition which got a big boost when news broke that multiple members of former Governor Roy Barnes' administration owned property around where future interchanges on the road might go in hopes of enriching themselves off of a road that the public was already increasingly-skeptical about.

Other reasons for opposition to the Outer Perimeter/Northern Arc included:

...Landowners living in the proposed path of the road who wanted the opportunity to sell their land to developers instead of having it taken by the state for road construction;

...Intowners who worried that the construction of the road would lead to more sprawl and overdevelopment which would hurt an Intown Atlanta area that was in the early stages of a renaissance...Intown Atlantans had a history of successfully turning back and defeating road construction projects that they did not want dating back to the East Atlanta freeway revolts of the late 1960's and early 1970's and the Outer Perimeter/Northern Arc became a prime target for them to defeat because of rapidly-evaporating public support for the road between 1998 and 2002;

...Environmentalists (on both the left and the right sides of the political spectrum) led by the Sierra Club, who objected to so much money being spent on what they perceived to be speculative road construction instead of transit expansion (...left-wing environmentalists objected to so many trees being cut down for the road while centrist and right-leaning environmentalists objected to so much prime hunting, hiking and camping land and fishing lakes and ponds being affected by the road);

...Bartow County residents (led by the powerful Rollins family of pest control fame) who objected to the "411-75 Connector" portion of the road cutting directly through the historic Dobbins Mountain site...the State of Georgia recently lost a 30-year court battle in their attempt to push through construction of the road (...the state spent more on court fees than it would have cost to build the road);

...Forsyth and Cherokee counties, who both intentionally permitted heavy amounts of high-end residential development directly in the path of the Northern Arc to make it more difficult for the state to build because those counties wanted lower-density residential development instead of the higher-density sprawl and overdevelopment that they thought would come with construction of the road.

Originally Posted by neil0311

It seems to me that this is one of the ways to alleviate potential congestion on I-285 as well as surface roads that can get some congestion during rush hour. When I travel to Gwinnett, I either have to get on I-285 or take Rte 120 and wind my way through Roswell, Alpharetta, Johns Creek, and Duluth.

This is an excellent point, as an Outer Perimeter-bypass would most-likely take a lot of heavy truck traffic off of I-285.

But the concept of a second Perimeter is just simply not politically viable in Georgia like it is in Texas and other states due to a combination of factors, including:

...The heavily-wooded hilly-to-mountainous terrain that the proposed road would run through (...nobody cares when you want to build a new road over flat, sparsely-wooded prairie land like in Texas, but when you want to build a new road through a large heavily-wooded hillside next to a mountain lake, everybody cares, particularly environmentalists on both the left and the right sides of the political spectrum);

...A history of successful freeway revolts by an increasingly road construction-averse Metro Atlanta public;

...And one of the strongest libertarian streaks of any state in the union, particularly amongst Georgia landowners living in fast-developing and fast-growing areas where interest by land speculators and real estate developers is high.

Georgia's unique contrarian streak is what makes large-scale new road construction infinitely much more difficult than in other fast-growing Sunbelt states like North Carolina, Florida and Texas.

[tikigod311]

Nice point B2R.

My opposition falls under the environmental side. Once you put in a highway like this, it is gone forever.