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Under a few conditions, that is. And they're not negotiable.
1. The highway must be permanently tolled. If we "can't afford" critical items such as education and basic services, we can't afford luxury items such as this (because that's really what the Northern Arc would be).
2. At no point in the future may the highway ever exceed three lanes in each direction except near exits.
3. This is the big one: Urban growth boundaries must be enacted in Bartow (east of I-75), Cherokee, Forsyth, Hall, and perhaps Jackson (west of I-85) Counties. We absolutely cannot let this lead to the next round of exurb sprawl.
Like I said, I'm now willing to seriously consider the Northern Arc ONLY if all three conditions are met.
...If you weren't in support of it before this point then you really don't have to be in support of it at this point or moving forward because the Northern Arc is dead.
Not only is the Northern Arc dead, but the Northern Arc is dead, cremated, buried and it ain't coming back!
Politically-powerful Forsyth, Cherokee and Bartow counties will never let the road be built on the route that was originally proposed to run through their counties, most of which is filled with high-end residential development (see the huge Windermere swim-golf-tennis community south of GA 20 in Southeastern Forsyth County, the residential developments along Bethelview Road, the huge Polo Country Club golf-swim-tennis development, etc).
And the route that was being talked about in 2007 that is about 30 miles or so further to the north of the original route is even less doable with the even more overwhelmingly fierce and severe opposition that it would incur from environmentalist groups on both the left (tree-huggers, Intown/ITP anti-road transit advocates), the right (hunters and fishermen) and in-between (hikers, campers, etc) because of how it would run through the heavily-wooded mountain ranges of the Blue Ridge and Southern Appalachian Mountains.
Plus, the idea of a resurrected Northern Arc is politically radioactive (to say the least) to the Georgia Republicans who dominate state government and the state's political scene.
Politically-dominant Republicans won't touch or even mention the road after winning political power on the strength of running against the unpopular road in 2002.
Politically-dominant Republicans also won't touch the Northern Arc proposal with a one million-foot long pole in radioactive suits behind a one million-foot wide lead wall after seeing what happened to the Democrats when they supported a road project which was never all that popular with the public to begin with.
Georgia Republicans, who are already increasingly worried over the state's rapidly-changing demographics which increasingly threaten to turn Georgia into a majority-minority state, see any support of the Northern Arc as certain political death.
Hence the reason why one never hears Georgia Republicans talking about bringing back the Northern Arc and why any talk of resurrecting the Northern Arc at the Georgia Department of Transportation is usually short-lived and ends abruptly.
There are just too many political headwinds against a Northern Arc/Outer Perimeter highway for the road ever to be resurrected as a new all-terrain highway through the affluent and politically-powerful Northern suburbs and exurbs where residents have the overwhelming political power and financial resources to block the road (see how the powerful Rollins family of pest control fame has been almost singlehandedly blocking the Georgia Department Transportation from building the 411-75 Connector with endless lawsuits and litigation maneuvers for 20 years...a proposed highway that was once part of the erstwhile Outer Perimeter/Northern Arc proposed route...through their land, land which is favored by local hunters and includes some historic Rollins family gravesites, some historic Civil War sites, some ancient Indian sites and some heavily-wooded mountain ranges).
The only thing that might be doable as far as the need for some kind of roadway expansion to accommodate the growing amount of very-heavy through truck traffic on and near I-285 is to build a bypass for trucks-only within the existing right-of-way of I-285 elevated over the existing roadbed with elevated truck-only roadways radiating out from I-285 over the existing roadbeds of the radial interstates (I-20 West, I-75 North, I-75 South, I-85 North, I-20 East, I-85 South).
But with the politics of the Atlanta region, even that idea likely could only be built after a long-overdue upgrade and expansion to the Atlanta's region's severely-lacking transit infrastructure as the media and the pro-transit interests would likely raise all hell over the state spending so much money on road expansion before transit.
Last edited by Born 2 Roll; 05-27-2013 at 02:31 PM..
Agreed wholeheartedly. Also take Ronald Reagan Parkway in Gwinnett, swing it up to Gwinnett Place, then Northpoint, then to Town Center. The Northern burbs desperately need more east/west access.
Which was almost completely ignored in the TSPLOST. Had more attention been focused on solutions for traffic between say...Cobb and North Fulton or Cherokee and Gwinnett, rather than $800 billion commuter rail lines between Cumberland Mall and Arts Center (which would take 10 years and would be dependent on additional funding) and other similar tone deaf agendas, then maybe, just maybe, the referendum would have passed.
Which was almost completely ignored in the TSPLOST. Had more attention been focused on solutions for traffic between say...Cobb and North Fulton or Cherokee and Gwinnett, rather than $800 billion commuter rail lines between Cumberland Mall and Arts Center (which would take 10 years and would be dependent on additional funding) and other similar tone deaf agendas, then maybe, just maybe, the referendum would have passed.
...Unfortunately, the T-SPLOST referendum was so flawed that it was probably screwed from the jump.
One of the (many) main issues that helped to doom the T-SPLOST was the public perception that T-SPLOST money would be used to build a resurrected Northern Arc after Gwinnett County placed the Sugarloaf Parkway Extension (from GA 316 in Dacula to P'tree Industrial Blvd in Sugar Hill) on the project list for funding.
Of course, the Sugarloaf Parkway Extension was not a resurrection of the Northern Arc/Outer Perimeter, but because funding from the T-SPLOST would have been used to build the project, which would have been constructed in the abandoned right-of-way of the officially-cancelled Northern Arc (a right-of-way which Gwinnett County mostly kept free of development so that they could eventually build the Sugarloaf Parkway Extension through the Dacula and Mall of Georgia areas), anti-road environmentalists, anti-road Intown transit advocates, anti-Northern Arc residents of Cherokee County (and Forsyth County which was in another T-SPLOST region), etc, went ballistic.
The mistaken perception that T-SPLOST funding was being used to build the Northern Arc helped the Georgia Chapter of the Sierra Club and the NAACP to join the Tea Party in opposing the T-SPLOST on the grounds that they (the Sierra Club, the NAACP and other anti-road Intown pro-transit interests) thought that Intowners would be paying a 1% to build new roads to spread more sprawl out in the suburbs outside of I-285 at the expense of much-needed transit improvements inside of I-285. GA Sierra Club: Article
When talking about making some kind of large-scale road improvements to improve east-west connectivity between Interstates 75 Northwest and 85 Northwest, one very-seriously must not underestimate just how extremely hard-core the anti-road pro-transit interests are inside of I-285.
Those ITP anti-road interests have a very successful track record of defeating (and altering) large-scale road expansion proposals dating back to the Intown East Atlanta Freeway Revolts of the 1960's and '70's (including the Outer Perimeter/Northern Arc bypass proposals of the late 1990's-early 2000's and last summer's T-SPLOST referendum which they defeated because they thought it had too much money for roads in it).
Any road proposal that has even the slightest hint of being a new Northern Arc will draw intensely fierce opposition from anti-road, anti-sprawl, pro-transit and environmental interests and will likely be politically dead on arrival as soon as the Atlanta media gets a hold of it (see last summer's T-SPLOST referendum).
Because of how controversial and seemingly unpopular the Northern Arc/Outer Perimeter concept is this road infrastructure-challenged region, the best that we can probably hope for in terms of improving east-west connectivity across OTP North Metro Atlanta in place of the Northern Arc concept is for truck-only lanes across the Top End of I-285 and some grade-separation of busy intersections across the Northside on roads like Pleasant Hill, State Bridge, Jimmy Carter, Holcomb Bridge and GA 92.
I am an engineer and I know my terminology and how you can manipulate it to suit your needs.
Sir, you need to show some maturity and humility. You have several of us who started out trying to be helpful, so you could understand the discussion. In these circumstances you don't know your terminology and we have cited some very direct and official sources on the matter.
You must not be the right type of engineer, in the wrong field, or well just plain stupid. I'm not sure which.
The terms me and the others are trying to explain to you are 1) industry wide terms, 2) gov't used terms, 3) terms frequently used in politics regarding transit and passenger trains.
We aren't manipulating anything. We are using the most widely used terms, including the most widely used on this website throughout all the different forums..
I'm not sure where your stubbornness comes from, but you will continually be confused by the overall discussion in all of these forums if you don't let others teach you the proper terminology.
For all those who are opposed to projects such as this, need only look at Georgia's biggest competitor in North Carolina who is laying down many more miles of freeways. Georgia has Atlanta, but statewide we are going to be hurting if something big and bold is not done.
Which was almost completely ignored in the TSPLOST. Had more attention been focused on solutions for traffic between say...Cobb and North Fulton or Cherokee and Gwinnett, rather than $800 billion commuter rail lines between Cumberland Mall and Arts Center (which would take 10 years and would be dependent on additional funding) and other similar tone deaf agendas, then maybe, just maybe, the referendum would have passed.
Oh, and I caught my typo. Meant million not billion.
For all those who are opposed to projects such as this, need only look at Georgia's biggest competitor in North Carolina who is laying down many more miles of freeways. Georgia has Atlanta, but statewide we are going to be hurting if something big and bold is not done.
statewide is doing pretty good.
We invested quite a bit into GRIP, which took a large amount of money away from Atlanta which has the biggest per capita lack of investment
I have thought that the proposed I-3 that is(was?) to run from Savannah to Augusta and then up to Knoxville would make a good substitute for the Northern Arc. This road is getting lambasted for its proposed route in the Blue Ridge. I say keep the portion from Savannah to Augusta, then loop toward Athens, then to Gainesville and north of Cumming and Canton and line back up with 411 at Cartersville, follow that to Rome and then continue on to Huntsville and on to Memphis.
The NIMBYs have to be dealt with at some point. North Georgia is growing to fast and too dense to not have interstate access around the metro area. Regionally, the state will hurt if there are not alternatives to getting around the region without having to funnell through Atlanta.
Have read of another proposal to extend I-81 to the Florida gulf coast. It would overlay 75 from Knoxville to Chattanooga and then follow the old proposal for the West GA Turnpike, run down the western side of the state, overlay I-185 then procede to either Tallahassee or Panama City.
These two proposals would give good north/south traffic thru Georgia alternatives to by-pass metro Atlanta altogether.
An interstate grade road is much safer, no at level crossings, doesn't have to take up substantially more width than an existing 4 lane non-interstate grade road. Don't know why we are so behind on things like this.
Still need some inner suburban east west traffic relief. I still like taking Ronald Reagan Parkway around to North Fulton and then thru East Cobb to 75. Keep it more like a parkway, don't build too many access points, build good sound barrier walls and then plant dense vegetation, limit zoning at intersections to limit commercial development. There just needs to be more east/west flow in the northern burbs, I don't care who is in control of the state government, who wants transit or what the demographics are. The truth is these are car dependent areas and cars still need to move from point A to point B.
I have thought that the proposed I-3 that is(was?) to run from Savannah to Augusta and then up to Knoxville would make a good substitute for the Northern Arc. This road is getting lambasted for its proposed route in the Blue Ridge. I say keep the portion from Savannah to Augusta, then loop toward Athens, then to Gainesville and north of Cumming and Canton and line back up with 411 at Cartersville, follow that to Rome and then continue on to Huntsville and on to Memphis.
The NIMBYs have to be dealt with at some point. North Georgia is growing to fast and too dense to not have interstate access around the metro area. Regionally, the state will hurt if there are not alternatives to getting around the region without having to funnell through Atlanta.
...I completely understand what you are saying, but the people who oppose (and defeat) large-scale road construction projects like the Northern Arc are just a tad bit beyond the status of NIMBY's and dealing with them is infinitely much easier said than done.
We're talking about a shockingly ultra-strong coalition of environmentalists (left-wing and right-wing), transit advocates, politically ultra-dominant Tea Partiers and powerful and politically well-connected suburban lawyers who have a very-impressive track record of defeating large-scale road construction projects that dates back to the Intown Atlanta Freeway Revolts of the late 1960's and early 1970's.
We're talking about a group of people (that is much-larger, much more stronger and infinitely much more powerful than they look) that took out an entire political party (the long-ruling Georgia Democrats who lost power after 140 years after backing the wildly-unpopular Northern Arc/Outer Perimeter).
We're talking about hard-line conservatives and libertarians who will vote against Republicans and "dyed-in-the-wool" liberals and progressives who will (and did) vote against the Democratic Party if it means stopping an unpopular road proposal that all those politically-divergent groups together totally despise.
It's no coincidence that the Northern Arc and last summer's T-SPLOST have gone down as two of the most-hated transportation initiatives in Georgia's history.
The common strain in those two thoroughly-defeated transportation initiatives is that they were both opposed by an dramatically underestimated but stunningly-powerful coalition of anti-road, pro-transit Intown liberals and hard-line conservative OTP NIMBY's and anti-government libertarians.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Saintmarks
Have read of another proposal to extend I-81 to the Florida gulf coast. It would overlay 75 from Knoxville to Chattanooga and then follow the old proposal for the West GA Turnpike, run down the western side of the state, overlay I-185 then procede to either Tallahassee or Panama City.
These two proposals would give good north/south traffic thru Georgia alternatives to by-pass metro Atlanta altogether.
An interstate grade road is much safer, no at level crossings, doesn't have to take up substantially more width than an existing 4 lane non-interstate grade road. Don't know why we are so behind on things like this.
Still need some inner suburban east west traffic relief. I still like taking Ronald Reagan Parkway around to North Fulton and then thru East Cobb to 75. Keep it more like a parkway, don't build too many access points, build good sound barrier walls and then plant dense vegetation, limit zoning at intersections to limit commercial development. There just needs to be more east/west flow in the northern burbs, I don't care who is in control of the state government, who wants transit or what the demographics are. The truth is these are car dependent areas and cars still need to move from point A to point B.
...That's good idea but building a new all-terrain highway through two of the most politically-powerful and most-affluent upscale areas in the state in North Fulton (an increasingly-desperate transit-hungry area that is trying to take control of MARTA so that they can get more transit service to and from Atlanta) and East Cobb (one of the most-affluent areas in the entire Southeastern U.S.) is a total non-starter politically.
It's not even a matter of whether or not the people in those politically-powerful and well-connected areas would allow a version of the Northern Arc to be built through their high-end and upscale neighborhoods because their political representatives know better than to ask, suggest, merely hint at or even broach the issue.
The absolute best that one could hope for in helping to improve east-west access is for a few very tightly-configured urban separated-grade intersections (at GA 120 & Johnson Ferry in East Cobb, at Pleasant Hill & P'tree Industrial Blvd in Gwinnett, at GA 9, GA 140 & GA 92 in Roswell, at GA 141 & State Bridge Rd in Johns Creek, at GA 140/Jimmy Carter Blvd & US 23/GA 13/Buford Hwy in Gwinnett) that don't disturb existing high-end commercial or residential development along those busy roads and maybe a truck-only bypass elevated over I-285 (which would be politically tough to pull-off anyways, especially if there is not a HUGE investment in transit first along that corridor).
One could also go for a widening of GA 140/Jimmy Carter Blvd/Holcomb Bridge Road into a 6-lane divided urban boulevard between Buford Hwy and GA 400 in Gwinnett and Fulton counties, but that's a proposal that would likely come with its own unique set of physical and political challenges.
There's a reason why cities like Houston and Dallas have 2 or 3 outer perimeters and a city like Atlanta has none which is because of the deceptively ultra-strong hardcore anti-road and environmental lobby that exists in Atlanta that does not exist in those other cities.
Last edited by Born 2 Roll; 05-28-2013 at 10:28 PM..
Born, not gonna copy and paste to save space, but how then did GA 400 get built? It goes through the toniest of the tony places?
I don't think conservatives are all that anti transit in their ideology. I think they grabbed onto it to gain political points in one area of the state, like they jumped on the changed state flage to gain political points in a completely different spectrum. I know this is overly simplistic, but conservatives are usually for growth and roads whereas liberals are more transit oriented.
Fact is, someone needs to take a lead and get something done. The state has tripled in population in my lifetime, but the same footprint of roadways is still basically the same ones that came on the map in my childhood of the 60s. Yes, they are wider and have more lanes, but we need some relief for the region.
By the way, I am all for commuter rail and expansion of other transit too. I don't think such a thing should be an either/or proposition.
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