What’s known as “The Northwest Corridor Project” will add two reversible lanes for vehicle traffic between the I-75/285 intersection at the Galleria northward to the 75/575 split. From there, one such lane will be added northward along 75 to Hickory Grove Road and another northward along 575 to Sixes Road in Cherokee County.
The 30-mile project has a $1 billion price tag and will be funded not by TSPLOST dollars but by a combination of $300 million in state gasoline taxes carried forward from prior years; $200 million in state DOT construction budget dollars; and an expected $270 million in low-interest loan federal dollars. In addition, a private partner or consortium, yet to be named, is expected to pick up between 10 and 20 percent of the cost, later to be repaid by the state. Construction could start by late next year and be complete by 2018 — long before most of the TSPLOST projects are finished.
“This I-75 corridor north is … not only for the metropolitan area, not only for Cobb and Cherokee counties, but for the greater good of our state, because it is a major corridor where goods that are manufactured are moving through it, goods that are bringing raw materials to our manufacturers are using that thoroughfare,” Gov. Nathan Deal told the Marietta Daily Journal. “I just simply have to congratulate the members of the General Assembly for being willing to do that, and I’m sure that there will be occasions in the future where they will be asked to make similar decisions.”
The new lanes will be both managed and toll lanes, meaning they will handle southbound traffic in the morning and northbound traffic during the afternoon commute; and that those who travel on them will pay a small toll to do so. The toll will vary depending on time of day and traffic conditions. The lanes will only be open during peak travel times.
Having learned from past mistakes, the state is not converting existing (i.e., “paid for”) lanes to toll lanes. Rather, it will be constructing the additional lanes and requiring those who travel on them to pay for the privilege. Commute times are expected to be less on the managed lanes than in the non-managed lanes; hence, the expectation that some drivers won’t mind paying the toll to travel in them.
Among those strongly supporting the proposal is state Sen. Lindsey Tippins (R-north Cobb).
“Any rational mind would realize that adding two lanes of interstate capacity in each direction at peak times, it’s kind of like killing rattlesnakes. I’m not sure there’s a wrong way to do that.”
To Deal also goes the credit for sidestepping a potentially ruinous pitfall in the original plan for the new lanes. That proposal would have given the private contractor(s) “sovereignty” over the new lanes until they were paid off, and would effectively have given them veto power over any other transportation improvements in the corridor that might have competed with their new lanes.
“What we came up with is a much more workable solution,” Deal said. “It certainly gives greater flexibility in terms of the state having the ability to determine what the tolls will be.”
To Deal goes as well the credit for avoiding the “business as usual” approach, but he credits the General Assembly and DOT.
“It was their willingness to try something a little different and see if it works,” he said. “I think it will. Every sign indicates that this is going to be perhaps a model for the way you do major construction projects, not only in the state of Georgia but probably all across the country.”
Let’s hope this project proves him right.
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I'm a big fan of trains where they have a chance of working but if you live off Sixes Road and Work in Midtown, Light rail ain't going to cut it. By the time the rail got to you, you'd be retired. "Premium Enhanced Express" Bus Service? No thanks.
There are exceptions to the rule but if you have to get in your car in the morning, you are more than likely going to continue all the way to work in your car and not switch out to a bus or a rail along the way.
Continue to build Marta, especially into Cobb. Realize though that roads are what it's going to take for those in the outer burbs.
We could be getting what we have gotten so much of transportation-wise when it comes to state government over the last two decades which is absolutely, positively NOTHING!!!!
I do also give Governor Deal much credit for voiding what would have likely been a very, very bad deal for the state of Georgia financially by cancelling the P3 (Public-Private Partnership) portion of the I-75/I-575 HOT Lanes.
Governor Deal must have taken into account what happened to California years ago when that state entered into a P3 on a toll road that soured when no one used the toll road and that financially-strapped state government had to pay the private company close to $500 million to get out of the contract and be able to make improvements to untolled routes that ran parallel to the little-used and unpopular privately-financed toll road.
It was simply a public relations and political disaster for the state of California that even played a large role in a governor being recalled from office (Governor Gray Davis in 2003).
The State of Georgia is going to have enough of a public relations and political disaster on its hands when the TIA, T-SPLOST, Regional Transportation Referendum or whatever that thing's increasingly desperate boosters and supporters want to call it this week, is voted down in flames at the polls on July 31st and the politicians are forced to scatter away from it like cochroaches and try to disown this monumentally bad idea in a desperate attempt to save what remains of their increasingly irrelevant political careers.
Two lousy reversible CARPOOL lanes with ADJUSTABLE TOLLS that spike through the roof to run traffic out of the lanes at the time of day when traffic is the absolute heaviest?
What happened to the EIGHT additional lanes that I-75 was supposed to receive at one time?
These lanes aren't going to do anything but extort money from anxious commuters desperate to escape the worsening rush hour traffic jams on I-75 between I-285 and the I-575 split as by the time that these lanes are actually completed hopefully sometime before 2020, the adjustable tolls on these lanes during peak periods may range as high as at-least $10-$15 one-way to ride the entire distance of the lanes from their northern end in Canton on I-575 and in Acworth on I-75 down to their southern end at I-285, and vice-versa.
If they are going to widen the I-75 & I-575 then they should WIDEN THE ROAD and add the EIGHT ADDITIONAL LANES to the right-of-way that they were originally going to add last decade before the political backlash from the anti-roaders who were concerned that the road would have been too big instead of adding these two reversible "EXTORTION LANES" that they claim to be in the process of adding now.
It addresses, at least some degree, our transportation problem in the I-75/I-575 corridor for the forseeable future by appealing to the public's preferred transportation alternative. The automobile.
Of course, there are many who hate the SOV and won't be satisfied until virtually everyone is forced to use public transportation of some sort.