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Southern Georgia Parkway - GA 520

Started by edwaleni, August 06, 2018, 10:25:27 PM

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edwaleni

I traversed the Southern Georgia Parkway (GA-520 Overlay) this weekend.

Took it from Tifton, GA west to Columbus to reach I-185.  Tifton to Sylvester was pretty normal, 4 lanes w/median and light traffic. Picked up after Sylvester to Albany and routed on the Albany Bypass, which looks like it was built around 1988.

Heavy traffic from Albany to Dawson, and then after US-82 routes west to Alabama, it becomes a standalone GA-520 until Richland, where US-280 becomes the primary all the way to Columbus.

From Dawson to Columbus, very little traffic.  4 lane with a median except for some brief narrowing at various smaller towns that weren't bypassed.

In fact I saw very few cars and no truck traffic. I was surprised as this is pushed as a major arterial between Columbus, Albany and I-75 @ Tifton.

It appears that most of the westbound traffic takes US-82 west to bypass Columbus to cross the Vandiver Causeway at Georgetown.

Don't think I have seen such a lightly used 4 lane highway since I drove US 41 in Indiana between Schneider and Kentland. There are times I don't see any traffic on that US-41 segment for 15 miles, with me or opposing.



Gnutella

I'd like to see GDOT widen U.S. 82 to four lanes from Dawson to the Alabama state line eventually.

Tom958

My favorite part of Corridor Z is the expressway through Fort Benning, cobbled together I guess mostly by the Corps of Engineers over a period of sixty years or more. They might still be adding stuff to it.

roadman65

I always liked GA 520 as GDOT does at least allow the road a 65 mph maximum outside cities.  Even between Albany and Dawson it allows it despite nearby US 19 from Albany to Leesburg is still 55 in the same area and environment.
Every day is a winding road, you just got to get used to it.

Sheryl Crowe

edwaleni

Quote from: Tom958 on August 30, 2018, 07:19:31 PM
My favorite part of Corridor Z is the expressway through Fort Benning, cobbled together I guess mostly by the Corps of Engineers over a period of sixty years or more. They might still be adding stuff to it.

I asked why this route was a 4 lane to begin with and how did it get corridor status in the NHS?

I was told it was considered a military arterial for Fort Benning assets to reach the Port of Brunswick.

The other thing I noticed (though not highway related) is that Benning also has a secondary rail line that connects with the national network at Americus.

Honestly, its mostly hidden in trees, ravines, and looks like it could be abandoned at a moments notice, but when I asked, was told this is kept open at the DoD's request. A local said about once or twice a year a train runs through in the middle of the night going about 15-20mph.

Tom958

More South Georgia Parkway items of interest:

Before the days of Corridor Z and GA 520, there was some weirdness with the Liberty Expressway bypass of Albany: the bridges over the Flint River and the next road to the west were completed in 1967, but the rest between US 82 east and US 19 north weren't completed until 1974. The section from US 19 north to US 82 west wasn't done until 1979-80. IIRC, that was still before GRIP was introduced.

Speaking of 1974, in order to build the eastern end of the new bypass, it was necessary to demolish the trumpet interchange of newly-relocated US 19 and US 82, which first appeared on the official state map only in 1963. All in all, the Liberty Expressway wasn't very well thought out. 

Not terribly interesting, but since I looked it up, the eastern Clark Avenue extension of the Albany bypass came in 1994, and the western trumpet in 1999.

When my Dad was little, his family lived a block off of Reynolds Street in Waycross, which is where US 1 ran until it was relocated to the new four-lane Memorial Drive in (I think) the forties. When Corridor Z came through, they ran it down a widened Reynolds Street and moved US 1 back to its original location, along with US 82 and US 23.

On a map, Dawson's lack of a bypass looks like a sizeable omission, but it kind of does have one: the route was moved a block west of Main Street. On satellite, you can see a thick band of woods along a creek, right where a bypass for both US 82 and GA 520 would need to be. So there.


Georgia

Looking at the Dawson bypass route from google maps, the route would likely be so long that from a time sense it also would not make sense.  I mean, you could start just to the NW of the airport and go southwest of 82, but that would route it very far to the south and west of Dawson.  Also, Dawson is depopulating sadly, so who knows how needed the bypass will be in the future; since 1980, the town has lost 25% of its population.  I havent been through the town in a while, but i loved its collection of older, multi-story houses in the downtown area.

Tom958

Quote from: edwaleni on September 03, 2018, 01:01:46 AMI asked why this route was a 4 lane to begin with and how did it get corridor status in the NHS?

I was told it was considered a military arterial for Fort Benning assets to reach the Port of Brunswick.

Seems plausible, but it was also one of the first projects in the Governor's Road Improvement Program, a.k.a. GRIP. So, it would've been widened eventually more or less regardless of the federal funding picture. Early on, GRIP was funded largely by direct apportionments from the general fund.

roadman65

Speaking of bypasses when was the Waycross Bypass opened?  Was it done at the time they switched both US 82 and 84 east of there?  From what I see the current bypass would have been a connector between US 82 and 84 as originally both routes never actually touched.  US 82 used Albany Avenue from the NW and turned East on Plant Avenue one block east of where US 84 came in from the west on Plant and then turned south on Memorial.  The bypass looks like it was built for the Corridor Z project to connect US 82 to old US 84 hence the CORR Z street blades along the bypass between Memorial Drive and heading west out of town.
Every day is a winding road, you just got to get used to it.

Sheryl Crowe

Tom958

#9
The Waycross bypass (it's more of a though-pass, really) first appears on the official map in 1986-87. The 1990-91 edition is the first to show US 82 and 84 on their current routes east of Waycross. Before then, all four US routes were concurrent on Plant Avenue between Memorial Drive-Carswell Avenue and Albany Avenue.

sparker

Quote from: roadman65 on September 05, 2018, 07:02:14 PM
Speaking of bypasses when was the Waycross Bypass opened?  Was it done at the time they switched both US 82 and 84 east of there?  From what I see the current bypass would have been a connector between US 82 and 84 as originally both routes never actually touched.  US 82 used Albany Avenue from the NW and turned East on Plant Avenue one block east of where US 84 came in from the west on Plant and then turned south on Memorial.  The bypass looks like it was built for the Corridor Z project to connect US 82 to old US 84 hence the CORR Z street blades along the bypass between Memorial Drive and heading west out of town.

I know it's not included in the current list of ARC corridors, but was "Corridor Z" ever formally part of that program?  Even though there are some GA-based ARC corridors actually located in the southern Appalachian region, a Columbus-Brunswick facility seems to be a stretch for that particular group.  Obviously it's a GRIP route (520, which makes it automatically part of the HPC 62 state cluster), so it has some connection to potential federal funding input -- though likely not to the level that ARC corridors have historically received. 

Which leads me to another question:  if this indeed was Corridor "Z" at some point, where the hell is Corridor Y?  :confused:

Roadsguy

Maybe the ARC is just run by Plankton and haven't figured out that there is a Corridor Z yet...

Mileage-based exit numbering implies the existence of mileage-cringe exit numbering.

roadman65

Quote from: Tom958 on September 05, 2018, 08:21:02 PM
The Waycross bypass (it's more of a though-pass, really) first appears on the official map in 1986-87. The 1990-91 edition is the first to show US 82 and 84 on their current routes east of Waycross. Before then, all four US routes were concurrent on Plant Avenue between Memorial Drive-Carswell Avenue and Albany Avenue.
Yeah using an old city street called Reynolds Street as maps show it as that actually being two city blocks south of Memorial Drive for a short distance.  In fact the industrial Avenue along the SW side of town is Old US 84 as well.  The through-pass took US 84 out of the industrial area and gave it a curve coming in from Homerville and heading due north as a four lane arterial with a T at GA 520.  Then turns east just before the CSX over grade crossing goes one block and rejoins its original alignment to become Plant Avenue.

I am guessing also at the Memorial Drive/ GA 520 intersection that was a wye split as when you head south on Memorial into that particular intersection from Downtown you see US 82/ GA 520 EB dead ahead of you before Memorial Curves to the right and intersects it.  Then making a left on US 82/GA 520 straightens out continuing the path you just saw.  In fact both the CSX line between Memorial and Knights Avenue remains long side of US 82 from there eastward not making a curve.  So I assume there was a wye there and US 84/ Former GA 50 both were main body of the intersection and US 1 turned from itself to leave US 84 while US 1 northbound veered to the left at the US 84 junction.
Every day is a winding road, you just got to get used to it.

Sheryl Crowe



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