How did GA 400 get built ITP?

[bryantm3]

my question is what's going to be done with the land that the tollway currently houses? it will be reduced back to a 3-lane road in that area, so will they offer the land for sale? they could easily sell the land for a combined total of $3 million dollars, and then the tollway demolition would essentially be free.

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by ATLTJL

Buckhead has always had money and been politically powerful. So I'm just wondering, how in the world did they get GA 400 built right through Buckhead? Surely residents must have known it would do this.

It seems like nowadays you can't even expand a road without someone getting upset by it. How did they build a big, thick, grade separated highway to run right through the center of the premiere area of town?

The short answer is that the Georgia 400 Extension got built through Buckhead without some of the hardcore staunch resistance that has prevented many other large-scale road proposals from being built because of the inclusion of an expansion of heavy rail transit service in the form of the MARTA Red Line (North Line) in the median of the GA 400 Extension by the powers-that-be to placate what otherwise would have been some very-determined opposition from highly road expansion-averse Intown interests.

The expansion of Georgia 400 through two of the most-affluent areas in the region in Buckhead and North Atlanta (now the City of Sandy Springs) was controversial enough at the time that the project moved forward, but the inclusion of the expansion of MARTA heavy rail transit service in the form of the MARTA Red Line (North Line) through the median of the GA 400 Extension worked just well enough for the real estate development-driven powers-that-be to quell some of the most hardcore opposition and get the road pushed through.

If a substantial expansion of MARTA heavy rail service in the form of the MARTA Red/North Line in the median of the GA 400 Extension had not been included as part of the road expansion/construction project, it is highly-likely that the normally anti-road Interests would not have permitted the expansion of the road to be built.

It was the inclusion of the very-heavy transit component in the all-terrain new road construction project that allowed the GA 400 Extension to be built at that time 20-25 years ago when Metro Atlanta was just wrapping up a period of then-massive freeway expansion during the "Freeing-the-Freeways" project.

The Intown anti-road expansion movement (centered in Intown neighborhoods east/northeast of Downtown Atlanta like Old Fourth Ward, Inman Park, Poncey-Highland, Virginia-Highland, Morningside-Lenox Park, etc) was willing to accept the construction of that particular large-scale road-expansion project if it meant getting a very-large investment in transit expansion in the form of a new transit line connecting the Airport, Downtown, Midtown and Buckhead with the Perimeter Center/Dunwoody area and other locales OUTSIDE and north of the I-285 Perimeter, something which was a massively big deal to normally extremely road expansion-averse Intown transit advocates.

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by bryantm3

my question is what's going to be done with the land that the tollway currently houses? it will be reduced back to a 3-lane road in that area, so will they offer the land for sale? they could easily sell the land for a combined total of $3 million dollars, and then the tollway demolition would essentially be free.

From what I have heard with the surrounding area that the GA 400 Extension goes through in Buckhead and North Atlanta desiring to see the addition of more greenspace in the area of the road, and with plans to supposedly add some recreational trails along the GA 400 Extension corridor, specifically in and around the areas where GA 400 crosses over Nancy Creek north of the toll plaza and where GA 400 crosses over Little Nancy Creek south of the toll plaza, I suspect that the land that currently houses the toll plaza will likely be turned into greenspace in the form of a newly-planted rows and groves of trees to thicken the tree buffers in that area, tree buffers which are extremely-popular with the public at-large (both with commuters and surrounding residents).

[lorilove]

Originally Posted by bryantm3

my question is what's going to be done with the land that the tollway currently houses? it will be reduced back to a 3-lane road in that area, so will they offer the land for sale? they could easily sell the land for a combined total of $3 million dollars, and then the tollway demolition would essentially be free.

No the land where the tollway exists will not be reduced back

Here is a visual of the demolition project - the picture changes from October, to early November to late November and shows the progression of the project

Peach Pass | Peach Pass Toll Facilities | GA 400 Tollway Demolition Project

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by lorilove

Here is some information

Georgia State Route 400 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I knew that planning for the road had been in the works for years (and yes there were many lawsuits) - according to Wikipedia planning started as early as 1954!

The building that GA400 runs under was actually built that way several years before the road was actually built.

This is a key point, that the planning for the complete construction of GA 400 from I-85 north to Cumming started as early as the 1950's.

GA 400 was always intended to be more of a developmental highway to increase traffic to and from then-non existent future development on the Northside of Metro Atlanta than to be a highway for any kind of traffic-relief (which there was no real need for at the time that GA 400 was initially planned in the mid-1950's).

Originally Posted by Gulch

To answer the OP's question on why it got built, it simply boiled down to the pro-tollway forces having more political pull than Buckhead/Sandy Springs residents opposing the road.

This is another key point.

...The pro-tollway forces (land spectulation and real estate development interests in Buckhead, Perimeter/Dunwoody and North Fulton and Forsyth counties) got that increased political pull over Buckhead/North Atlanta residents by including the MARTA heavy rail transit line in the median of the GA 400 Extension.

That inclusion of a large-scale expansion of heavy rail transit service in with the GA 400 Extension project placated the most hardcore Intown anti-road opposition whom otherwise likely would have come to the aid of Buckhead and North Atlanta/Sandy Springs residents who did not want the road to come through their highly-desirable and upscale residential area.

Because that bone in the form of the MARTA North Line heavy rail expansion was thrown to placate the staunchest opposition, Buckhead and North Atlanta residents who did not want the road to run through their area were basically left on island alone to (unsuccessfully) fight powerful Northside land spectulation and real estate development interests on their own without any meaningful help from the usual suspects (the Sierra Club, the NAACP, anti-road advocates in Intown East Atlanta, etc).

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by ATLTJL

What about roads like East Paces Ferry?

I'm assuming that before they built GA 400, that road connected. I'm amazed they didn't insist on a bridge or tunnel to keep E. Paces connected.

Because East Paces Ferry Road is heavily-residential west of GA 400 over to Piedmont Road and because East Paces Ferry Road served as an alternative to Peachtree between Piedmont Road and Lenox Square before the construction of GA 400, that residential neighborhood along E. Paces Ferry Road lobbied to NOT have a bridge over GA 400 so that heavy traffic could not cut-through that heavily-residential 2-lane portion of East Paces Ferry Road between Piedmont Road and Lenox Square.