Planning for the boom: Truck traffic expected to rise in metro Atlanta, North Georgia

[cwkimbro]

Originally Posted by bu2

Using existing I-75 and I-16 would be a logical way to get around the Macon part of the route issue. I-475 could be redesignated I-75 and the old 75 I-14. I think instead they are looking at going further south, but it could save a lot of money and avoid many of the environmental issues.

Well the 4-lane divided non-freeway GRIP corridor is essentially doing exactly that.

The route arrives in the Macon area west of Warner Robins. Most traffic to Savannah uses a non-GRIP corridor surface street to I-16. It is Route 96 from Fort Valley to Danville.

Traffic going east of Macon, would get on I-75 north, go through Macon, over an existing bridge to I-16, and exit east to Emery Hwy.

My whole argument for not needing a freeway is this route, except through Macon, is a rural 65 mph divided 4 lane road with prioritized traffic flow to the design and the route is pretty much traffic free. However, through Macon it is alot of turns, surface streets, and has to go in the direction of traffic through town.

I just think if we left it not a freeway these connections to I-16 and the route through Macon shouldn't merge people to merge with the heavy traffic on I-75 and go north through town and the final few miles to I-16 should be brought up to GRIP corridor standards. Some of the latter of this is being upgraded.




Imagine drawing a red line straight east from the western portion to I-16 towards Savannah; Red line meaning a GRIP corridor standard road. Then imagine another line bridging the east to west side without having to go through the center of Macon.

Incidentally, that northward turn east of Macon is the route going near Milledgeville and also avoiding a very wide flood plain over the Oconee River. Same problem in the area south of Macon. The river floodplain is narrow at the fall line, but gets exceedingly wide below the fall line.

[Beretta]

Please keep this thread about metro Atlanta. Posts about the state of Georgia need to be in the GA forum.

[Phil P]

Very interesting info about the inland ports and development by the state there and the current usage of rail! Paying more attention to the track in Suwanee, they have a train rolling through about every hour, I don't know how many more you could stick on there, it does seem fully used.

Seems to me that if this continues, the southside of the metro is better positioned for growth than the northside in the long run. If there's no obvious large scale road or transit way improvements on the northside, especially an outer perimeter, it's going to get congested real quick at the current rate of housing expansion vs infrastructure. It's already a serious PITA to go east/west along the northern part of the metro.

It's maybe for the better this way. Ecologically speaking, it's probably better to leave the wetter Appalachians and foothills undisturbed and push more development in the secondary growth forests down south. And it would make the metro more balanced instead of this let's build a new downtown CBD 5 miles north every 15 years trend.