Sugarloaf Parkway extension Phase 2 to cost $867 million; Gwinnett County hopes fed grants will cover most of it

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by Need4Camaro

Personally I think it should just be a tollroad but I can see the concern if tolls wont cover the construction costs. Does GDOT have any involvement in this project or is it only gwinnett? Can't funding come from the recently approved 1 Trillion Infrastructure Bill? Certainly Georgia will receive some of this funding?

GDOT (the Georgia Department of Transportation) has no direct involvement in the Sugarloaf Parkway extension project, nor should GDOT most likely have any involvement in the project.

That’s because the project is taking place in the abandoned right-of-way of the highly controversial erstwhile proposed cancelled Outer Perimeter/Northern Arc highway.

And GDOT’s direct involvement in such a project most likely (if not most assuredly) would upset significant swaths of the metro Atlanta and North Georgia public who would take GDOT’s direct involvement in the project as a signal that the deeply unpopular Outer Perimeter/Northern Arc highway project was being resurrected by Georgia state government after being cancelled 2 decades ago by Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue at the start of his first term in office as governor.

Ideally, a state-level transportation agency like GDOT probably should be heavily involved in a project like this that consists of a new grade-separated controlled-access highway being built between two major state-owned and maintained routes (Georgia 316 and Interstate 85).

There was a similar situation in the Washington DC area where the states of Virginia and Maryland built limited and controlled-access highways in some parts of the right-of-way of a highly-controversial erstwhile proposed Washington Outer Beltway project that was cancelled by the VA and MD state governments in the 1970’s.

The State of Virginia constructed the Fairfax County Parkway and the Franconia-Springfield Parkway through some of the northwestern and southern parts of its portion of the right-of-way of the erstwhile proposed Washington Outer Beltway from the late 1980’s through the early 2010’s.

The State of Virginia originally signed the roadways as four-digit secondary state highways Virginia State Routes 7100 (Fairfax County Parkway) and 7900 (Franconia-Springfield Parkway) before making the routes primary state highways and changing the roadways’ numbering to the three-digit designation of Virginia State Routes 286 and 289, respectively, upon completion of the final section of the Fairfax County Parkway in 2012.

The State of Maryland constructed the Intercounty Connector toll road (signed Maryland Route 200) between Interstates 270 and 95 through most of the northern portion of its section of the right-of-way of the erstwhile proposed Washington Outer Beltway. Maryland started construction on the road in 2006 and completed construction on the road in 2014.

The State of Georgia ideally probably could be doing something similar with the portion of the right-of-way of the cancelled Outer Perimeter/Northern Arc that Gwinnett County wants to complete the Sugarloaf Parkway extension in between Georgia 316 in Dacula and Peachtree Industrial Boulevard in Sugar Hill. And the State of Georgia could put a State Route designation on it and pay for much of the cost of the roadway with tolls.

But given the extreme political sensitivities of the Outer Perimeter/Northern Arc proposal, even 20 years after the project’s cancellation, it’s understandable politically why the state likely shouldn’t be directly involved with the Sugarloaf Parkway extension project that is taking place in the ROW of the canceled Outer Perimeter/Northern Arc project.

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by cwkimbro

I would consider a single toll point, where it is free on both sides.

However, capture the large amount of traffic cutting through between GA316 and I-85. This especially includes the traffic this will drive in industrial development to the GA316 corridor.

I don't think the toll needs to completely pay for the road. It just needs to help + I think it will keep long-term traffic at bay, so the roadway stays productively usable. The main question is what would the ratio of revenue collection to revenue generated be?


For me the toll money is to also extend the project past I-85 to it's original planned terminus about Peacthree Industrial Boulevard. The are between GA316 and I-85 is the single best place to collect toll revenue from, as it is where more drivers get long-range travel utility out of the project. I think that last leg will be hard to collect toll revenue on in the future, so it is best to do it where it makes sense up-front. You'll never be able to add a toll later, but you can take it away.


The first phase (2A) is $535 million. They're hoping/expecting they will get $432 million in federal funding from the gas tax revenue, if they can pay a full $108 million in a local spending match (about 20%). The 2017 SPLOST funds will pay $48m and the 2023 SPLOST program will pay $60m.

I also strongly support using revenues from tolls to finance the full completion of the Sugarloaf Parkway extension from GA-316 in Dacula to PIB in Sugar Hill.

Though, I also understand that the current $867 million estimated cost of just phases 2A and 2B of the project between GA-316 and I-85 is going to raise some eyebrows and attract a significant amount of criticism while also generating serious questions about whether such a significant amount of money should be spent on constructing what many perceive will be a moderately or even relatively lightly used roadway instead of on improving transit service in an increasingly urban county of nearly 1 million residents.

And I don’t know if the current Democrat-dominated version of the Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners will either be willing and/or want to endure such criticism of such a significant amount of money being spent on this last section of the Sugarloaf Parkway extension instead of transit in an increasingly urban and Democratic-leaning county.

Decidedly conservative (but often very strongly development-oriented) Republican-dominated previous versions of the Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners often wilted under heavy criticism and opposition to their past proposals to finance the full completion of the Sugarloaf Parkway extension from GA-316 to PIB because of the unpopularity of tolls in this region traditionally.

As they say, hindsight is 20-20 vision, but I do strongly wish that past versions of the Gwinnett County BoC would have beared down and just financed the completion of the Sugarloaf Parkway extension back when construction costs were significantly lower in the late 2000’s and the early 2010’s during and immediately after the Great Recession. Instead, I recall the Gwinnett BoC of that era basically wasting much public money on building a minor-league baseball stadium in a poor location in a relatively isolated area along GA-20 in unincorporated Lawrenceville.

Instead of wasting taxpayer dollars on a very poorly thought out minor league baseball stadium that was located only about 36 miles from a Major League Baseball stadium, maybe the Gwinnett BoC of that era should have been spending at least some of that seemingly very misguided stadium money on building out the Sugarloaf Parkway extension and using tolls to fund much of the rest of the construction cost.

Because I don’t know if the current Gwinnett BoC will be able or want to endure the significant criticism that they likely are going to receive about the $867 million cost of the roadway… Which much of the criticism they receive about the roadway is likely to be politically motivated criticism from conservatives who once completely dominated Gwinnett County governance and politics but have found themselves largely locked into minority rule in an increasingly minority and Democratic Gwinnett.

The Democrats who now dominate Gwinnett County government and politics potentially may not want to proceed forward with this project if the cost of the project becomes a political cudgel that conservatives and Republicans can use to hit Gwinnett Democrats over the head with politically on fiscal grounds.