US 319, Tallahassee to Tifton

[Tom958]

US 319, TALLAHASSEE to TIFTON

Part 1: Tallahassee to Thomasville

I've long been fascinated by this route because it arguably demonstrates four different ways of addressing the same problem: providing a four-lane corridor on a route that isn't especially heavily traveled, but is desirable for system continuity reasons. Really, the narrative needs to go from north to south, but I took the photos headed northbound, so that's how I'll present them here. I might reverse the order when I post them at www.skyscrapercity.com and invite readers there to guess what's screwy. 

I'll start with the impressive flyover carrying southbound 319 traffic onto Capital Circle-- the route through downtown is now FL 61. As you see from the satellite view, the nearby interchange with I-10 is cobbled together and counterintuitively arranged, despite the recent addition of a braided ramp onto I-10 westbound from Capital Circle.





North of here, 319 is a state-of-the art (at the time) six lane arterial per Florida practice, with bike lanes and no opportunity to turn left onto the road from side streets except at intersections that are designed to be signalized eventually. The whole eastern half of Capital Circle is built per the same concept, but over a long enough period of time that it's easy to see how Florida's thinking has evolved. The older northeastern quadrant of Capital Circle has little inbuilt provision for control of left turns, but the brand-new southeastern quadrant has increasingly elaborate provisions including buttonhook left turn ramps (admittedly ROW is less constricted there), plus brick paver-looking crosswalks and ever more elaborate landscaping. US 319 is more in an intermediate phase. Sadly, I didn't get any photos-- it would be hard to show what I'm talking about from a windshield photo, anyway.


The urban configuration of 319 (and, arguably, Tallahasse itself) ends abruptly at Bradfordville, site of a Target shopping center; there's a Walmart center not far south of there, and a high school to the north. I guess we'll see how that works out-- I can't imagine that Target, Walmart and the local board of education didn't anticipate their customer base sprawling for miles in every direction when they built there. That said, you'll see that upgrading the highway to a more urban standard will be easy when the time comes.

Here's where the fun really begins, at the rural section. This was the last of the four segment of 319 to be widened (Tallahassee-Thomasville-Moultrie-Tifton), and Florida really pulled out the stops. The median is wide and variable, and there are buttonhook left turn ramps at (to me) more than convenient intervals.









Annoyingly, I breezed right into Georgia without getting a photo of this section's most interesting feature: these football-shaped intersections. Unsignalized crossings of rural divided highways often present a comprehension problem to stupid or impaired drivers, but the unusual shape of these crossings surely suggests that there's something atypical going on here-- turning left from the crossing into oncoming traffic would require a counterintuitively sharp turn. The layout looks 18 wheeler-friendly, too.

Last thing: There are fairly elaborate filter berms to protect water quality. The granite riprap used in my neck of the woods is surely hard to come by here; instead, they use broken concrete, stained by dirt to an attractive light beige. It looks surprisingly nice.

All in all, this is the best rural divided highway I've ever seen. 


Now, on to Georgia. From the state line to the outskirts of Thomasville is like Florida's section, just not as high powered. Again, the median is wide and variable-- this part was built before Georgia adopted its current practice of adhering strictly to the 44 foot median and roadways that are exact clones of each other.







Thomasville has bypasses for US 19 on the east, US 84 on the north, and US 319 on the west, plus Pine Tree Blvd to the south, but none are controlled or limited access, so I always take the shorter diagonal through downtown. Just hope not to get caught by a train-- there are bridges over the railroad, but no obvious way to get to them. GPS does come in handy at times.

Once I got caught by a train-- it moved incredibly slowly for a long time, then stopped and started backing up! I took off to the west, and to my family's horror, drove our (white) minivan through the adjacent railyard, across the tracks on a black-muddy path, and made it to the overpass at MLK, which we could see in the distance. 

Thomasville was a resort in the Victorian era-- vacationers would get to Savannah by ship, then take the railroad until it ended. It has many Victorian homes and other buildings, and the downtown, once forlorn looking, looks nicer every time I see it. Driving through that Saturday, there were plenty of people there, though not enough to cause a traffic problem.

Here are two photos of the US 19 Thomasville Bypass looking from 319, first northward...


...then southward. This stretch of US 19, built in the early '60's, is Thomasville's main suburban commercial strip, and has now-mature trees planted in a neat row down the median.

[Tom958]

Part 2, Thomasville to Tifton

While I tend to think of the Tallahassee-Tifton highway as demonstrating four different ways to address the same situation, that's not really fair. From the southern outskirts of Thomasville southward is mostly pine woods, but northward of there is impressively agricultural. That means that it makes more sense to use a more conservative cross section to avoid disrupting farms and farmhouses. So...

North of Thomasville toward Moultrie, there's this: an unvarying five lanes, even right through Coolidge, the only town on that segment. Yawn. This was the third segment of the route to be completed, and presumably incorporates lessons learned from the Moultrie-Tifton segment.



This is the southern end of the Moultrie bypass. IIRC, it was built in the late '70's or early '80's as two lanes, with the second roadway added in the '90's. Here you see the oversized left turn bays that Georgia is so fond of. In places it has frontage roads, like you'd see in Alabama. It also has a Home Depot and a Lowe's almost next door to each other. To my amazement, both are still open, and when we drove through, they were both doing brisk business-- each of their parking lots were about 2/2 full. At this point I'll add that Moultrie and the other agricultural towns here look quite prosperous.

I wish that at least the GA 33 north to GA 133 portion of the Moultrie bypass had been built as a freeway, especially since work has been started to widen 133 from I-75 at Valdosta to Albany. But that's just roadgeek OCD in action. 



Between Moultrie and Tifton is the first and most interesting of the four segments to be built. The rural sections were built as four lanes with a narrow painted median, more like continuous passing lanes than a real four lanes highway. Now, though, left turn bays are being built at every intersection.






Entering the town of Norman Park, new sidewalks have just been added, with colored, stamped concrete like you'd see in the suburbs. It looks like the contractor skimped on the dye, though-- the color is more hot pink than brick red. 



Through Norman Park and Omega, the cross section narrows to three lanes including a two-way left turn lane. Going by memory, I would've said that the three lane sections are provided with sidewalks, but they aren't everywhere.



This is in Omega, FWIW.



North of Omega, reconstruction isn't quite so far along. I say "reconstruction" because in some places where that turn lane is being added, the profile is also being flattened out, requiring removal and replacement of both pavement and subgrade. In these areas, portable jersey barriers separate the work-in-progress and detour areas, so the difference in profile is easy to see (how did I not get a photo of that?  ). That seems rather extravagant, especially considering that the area is so flat. However, some of the existing pavement is in really horrible shape: not potholed, but rough like a washboard, and for no obvious reason.

[roadman65]

Nice photos.  I never clinched this part of US 319.  I did do it from where it deviates from US 221 southward to Tifton and of course its long concurrences with US 98 along with from US 90 to US 27 in Tallahassee.  I did never get this part though.

Thanks for sharing.

[OracleUsr]

Wow, it REALLY has been a long time since I've been on US 319.  I don't remember any of that.  Yeah, 18 years is a long time (1996 Clemson/FSU game was the last time I was in that part of Georgia or Florida)

[ATLRedSoxFan]

My parents used to live/retired in Thomasville, so I know that road. I live in Quincy, MA, but am very familiar with US 319/GA35. I've seen that road morph since 1985. Memories!

[xcellntbuy]

As I begin my move to middle Georgia, hopefully I will also be able to enjoy this nice quiet rural area of both states soon.

[mefailenglish]

I made more trips on 319 between Tallahassee and Tifton in the 90's than I care to remember.  I still remember 319 turning to 2 lanes pretty quickly after passing Cap Circle NE and the WalMart up there, then expanding to divided 4 lanes once you hit the GA line.  And of course, 319 went through town instead of along the old truck route like it does now.  #GetOffMyLawn

[Tom958]

Thanks, everyone! I wasn't that happy with how this photo feature turned out (mainly because of my failure to get photos of some especially interesting features), but I'm glad you enjoyed it anyway.