Georgia

[Eth]

I don't understand why GDOT insists on listing their state highways before U.S. highways. The proper order on that "Fort Benning | Columbus" blueprint should be "U.S. 27 | GA 1" under NORTH, and "U.S. 280 | GA 520" under WEST.

That one is strange even for them - they usually do put the US highway first, when they sign the state route at all (which they don't on the majority of BGSes). I'm guessing maybe this had to do with 520 being one of those "special" routes, maybe followed by thinking "if 520's on there, we may as well put 1 on there too". No idea, just pure speculation.

Much more worrying is the fact that they forgot about the capital G in LaGrange.

[afguy]

Here are some drawings of the signs that will be installed for the I-85 express lane extension in Gwinnett County. The project will start this fall and extend the existing HOT lanes 10 miles from Old Peachtree Road to Hamilton Mill Road.
85expressDisplayBoard1-page-001 by brandon walker, on Flickr

85expressDisplayBoard7-page-001 by brandon walker, on Flickr

85expressDisplayBoard4-page-001 by brandon walker, on Flickr

85expressDisplayBoard6-page-001 by brandon walker, on Flickr

85expressDisplayBoard2-page-001 by brandon walker, on Flickr

85expressDisplayBoard8-page-001 by brandon walker, on Flickr

[OracleUsr]

An OAPL for the I-985 junction?  I thought Exit 113 was one lane off I-85 Northbound (at least it used to be).

[Gnutella]

Actually, another error I noticed on those GDOT sign blueprints for Columbus is that the I-185 North sign should read "LaGrange" instead of "Lagrange."

[Zzonkmiles]

I can't help but feel that those lowercase "g's" look like q's. Do you have a picture of any signage with a lowercase q?

[J N Winkler]

The Custer Road job has PI number 0011437, doesn't it?  I'll check for it the next time I do a TransPI run (I generally try to do one every three to six months).

[Gnutella]

Definitely some screwy signage.

Speaking of screwy signage, I drove down Olympic Drive to the new Perimeter interchange today, and I noticed that there's a simple sign at the "outer" on-ramp directing people to Hull. It's a small rectangular sign that says "Hull" with a right-pointing arrow to the right. The problem is, it's a yellow sign with black text.

Whoever did the sign work for this interchange really fucked a lot of things up.

[D-Dey65]

Here's an overall view of the construction site for the new College Station Road bridge.


As you can see, one of the bridge piers is already built, and I'm guessing that the rebar is for the top of the second pier.

"Share the Road," huh? I take it the bridge isn't narrow enough not to be shared now.

[Gnutella]

"Share the Road," huh? I take it the bridge isn't narrow enough not to be shared now.

There are bike lanes on that segment of College Station Road, but they get pinched off at the bridges because they're not wide enough. I figure there will be enough width on the new bridge(s) to extend the bike lanes.

[afguy]

The U.S. 129 widening in Hall County should start next spring....

If funding is in place, the U.S. 129/Athens Highway widening project in East Hall could go out for bids later this year, with work starting next spring.

The Georgia Department of Transportation hopes to award the project to a contractor in December, district spokeswoman Teri Pope said.

But the agency "needs federal gas tax funds to build this project,"  she said.

The federal Highway and Transportation Funding Act of 2015, signed by President Barack Obama on May 29, provides funding only through July.

The short-term funding law has created uncertainty within DOT.

"We are preparing for July (contract) lettings and tentatively for August,"  DOT spokeswoman Natalie Dale said last week.

At nearly $40 million, the U.S. 129 widening project would likely be Hall County's next big road project. All but five of the 205 parcels of land needed to widen the road have been bought, Pope said.

http://www.gainesvilletimes.com/section/6/article/110353/

[Tom958]

The U.S. 129 widening in Hall County should start next spring....

I'm more interested in what, if anything, will happen to 129 north of Gainesville. What a mess!

On an unrelated topic: The I-75-US 41/76 interchange on the north side of Dalton is getting a new southbound 75 to northbound 41 ramp in addition to an upgrade of the existing southbound to south/eastbound loop ramp. I can't tell in the field if there'll be one exit from 75 or two, and I'm too lazy to look up the project concept report.


This is in adventurenumber's 'hood. Whatever happened to him? 

[iBallasticwolf2]

The U.S. 129 widening in Hall County should start next spring....

I'm more interested in what, if anything, will happen to 129 north of Gainesville. What a mess!

On an unrelated topic: The I-75-US 41/76 interchange on the north side of Dalton is getting a new southbound 75 to northbound 41 ramp in addition to an upgrade of the existing southbound to south/eastbound loop ramp. I can't tell in the field if there'll be one exit from 75 or two, and I'm too lazy to look up the project concept report.


This is in adventurenumber's 'hood. Whatever happened to him? 

From what it seems they are adding a AUX lane for the existing loop ramp and a new ramp so I guess it can be a parclo.

[Thing 342]

A quick question, since I'll be headed down that way this weekend: Anyone know when the missing piece of the Fall Line Fwy around Milledgeville is scheduled to open? Obviously it won't be open when I drive through there, but I was wondering how far along construction is. I have heard about it opening sometime in 2016, but that was awhile ago and the schedule may have slipped.

[lordsutch]

A quick question, since I'll be headed down that way this weekend: Anyone know when the missing piece of the Fall Line Fwy around Milledgeville is scheduled to open? Obviously it won't be open when I drive through there, but I was wondering how far along construction is. I have heard about it opening sometime in 2016, but that was awhile ago and the schedule may have slipped.

Last I checked the GDOT Project Tracker said that it is expected to be complete in late 2016. The four-lane along existing GA 24 to the Sandersville bypass I think is due to be completed this summer.

[xcellntbuy]

A quick question, since I'll be headed down that way this weekend: Anyone know when the missing piece of the Fall Line Fwy around Milledgeville is scheduled to open? Obviously it won't be open when I drive through there, but I was wondering how far along construction is. I have heard about it opening sometime in 2016, but that was awhile ago and the schedule may have slipped.

GDOT has been plowing clay soil back since I moved here in August 2014.  The currently eastern piece of the Fall Line Freeway open south of Milledgeville is supposed to be GA 540 (not signed) and ends at US 441.  East of the overpass that has been standing over US 441 is still an occasional busy place, but still no road.  Traffic is extremely light on the road.

[Thing 342]

Thanks guys. Will attempt to get some pictures of construction when I drive down there on Saturday. Is the fastest way around the gap simply to take GA-24 to US-441 through Milledgeville? Trying to get Google Maps to route that way takes a bit of coaxing.

[xcellntbuy]

Thanks guys. Will attempt to get some pictures of construction when I drive down there on Saturday. Is the fastest way around the gap simply to take GA-24 to US-441 through Milledgeville? Trying to get Google Maps to route that way takes a bit of coaxing.

If you are coming over from Sandersville (kaolin clay capital of the world) on the east side of Milledgeville, yes, most likely.  GA 57 is too far (20 miles) south of Milledgeville in Irwinton when GA 57 intersects with US 441/GA 29.  Nice quiet area to go for a ride.

[Eth]

Not totally sure if this qualifies as news, but I discovered a new state route last night that I had no idea existed.

On our way home from the Braves game, we got off I-20 eastbound at exit 59B, which is signed as "TO Memorial Dr/Glenwood Ave". When I saw this sign at the end of the ramp, I thought "surely that should say TO rather than NORTH, and 154's an east-west route through here anyway".

After making the left turn and seeing the reassurance marker after the I-20 west ramp, only then did I notice the "CONN" crammed into the shield.

The idea that there would be a route this close to where I live that I'd never even heard of before seemed strange, so I got home and checked the maps. Sure enough, official GDOT maps would seem to indicate that this is indeed a new route:



See that otherwise-unlabeled black line heading south from the 154 marker on the 2015-16 map? That would be it, and you'll see that it's not there in the previous edition. So there you go, the (apparently) new SR 154 Connector.

[afguy]

"After months of discussion and a lot of cooperation from chairmen and ranking members, and staffs and members from both sides of the aisle, I'm happy to announce that Sen. Boxer and I have an agreement for a multi-year, bipartisan highway bill."

That announcement came today from U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on the Senate floor regarding the bipartisan Drive Act.

The six-year bill has three years of guaranteed funding for the highway trust fund, which is on a crash course to insolvency after July 31 (when the current short-term funding extension expires).

Just last week, the U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx warned Georgia transportation officials that the federal government won't be able to meet its financial obligations to states after Aug. 1.

http://commuting.blog.ajc.com/2015/07/21/u-s-senate-leaders-announce-agreement-on-6-year-highway-bill/

[afguy]

The new exit 14 on I-985 is being held up by the fed funding situation....

A new Interstate 985 interchange between Flowery Branch and Oakwood is behind schedule because of uncertainty over federal highway funding – a debate that's expected to drag on this week in Congress.

"With only short-term extensions of transportation authorization, it is hard to plan projects of this magnitude,"  said Sam Baker, senior transportation planner for the Gainesville-Hall Metropolitan Planning Organization, the area's main road planning agency.

"We'll just have to wait and see how the transportation legislation at the federal level pans out for this project to move forward,"  he said.

The MPO's recently approved Regional Transportation Plan calls for construction of the interchange in the Martin Road area of Ga. 13/Falcon Parkway by 2023.

The $43.3 million Exit 14, as it has been called, is expected to relieve traffic at the Spout Springs Road and Ga. 53/Mundy Mill Road interchanges south and north of it, respectively.

http://www.gainesvilletimes.com/section/6/article/111084/

[Rothman]

Actually, reading between the lines of DOT-speak, I read that as: "This is really a project that wasn't a real priority of ours and we are grateful that the Feds have provided themselves as an excuse to get out of doing it in the short-term."

[Grzrd]

This article reports that a new inland Appalachian Regional Port is scheduled to open near Chatsworth off of I-75, with the hoped-for benefit that it will take some trucks off of I-75 in the Atlanta area:

A new inland Appalachian Regional Port – which will feature a railroad terminal but no water – will open just off Interstate 75 in north Georgia by 2018, and will be used to funnel goods produced in East Tennessee, north Georgia, Alabama and parts of Kentucky to the deepwater port of Savannah, Ga.
At the new port, in Chatsworth, Ga., about 40,000 tractor-trailer loads annually of vehicles, auto parts and other manufactured goods will be put on CSX rail cars for the journey to Savannah, taking that number of the big trucks off I-75 through the Atlanta area and helping to relieve traffic congestion, Georgia officials said after a ceremony Tuesday to sign documents to get the project underway ....
Cars from the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, and auto parts from numerous manufacturers in the Knoxville and Nashville areas are expected to be primary commodities that will find their way onto the CSX intermodal trains. The container trailers will be loaded at the Chatsworth port and taken to Savannah, where they will be transferred to ships ....
The facility, to be operated by the Georgia Ports Authority, is intended to deliver finished goods more efficiently to the authority's Garden City Terminal, the second-busiest container port on the East Coast after New York-New Jersey.

edit

In a way, this can be viewed as a multimodal version of Corridor A from the Third Infantry Division Highway ("I-3") study from a few years ago:

[Tomahawkin]

I like that concept, even though it wont happen within the next 20 years. I like that Its a Total plan of Alternate routes to get to Florida or for Florida residents to travel up north while avoiding the Traffic around Atlanta. Not to mention the Carolinas, Georgia, Tennessee and Alabama is growing exponentially due to the fact that so many jobs are relocating from the West Coast/Northeast/Midwest out to many of the areas in that map.

[Georgia]

Chatsworth is a pretty good ways away from 75, I will be curious what route the trucks will take to drop off the cargo containers.

[codyg1985]

US 76 is a four lane between Dalton and Chatsworth, but it would require some improvements to facilitate the truck traffic to and from there. The railroad is also on the east side of Chatsworth, which makes things a little more difficult to get to from I-75.