<p>March 10, 2006
Atlanta Journal-Constitution</p>
<p>Will 23 lanes be enough?
Proposal would put I-75 among country’s biggest</p>
<p>Ariel Hart - Staff</p>
<p>It’s wider than an aircraft carrier. Far wider than the carving on Stone Mountain. Wider than the White House stretched end to end, twice.</p>
<p>It’s the planned I-75, all 23 lanes, coming soon to Cobb County. As currently conceived it’s 388 feet across, wider than a football field is long.</p>
<p>The historic negotiations to expand I-75 and I-575 above the Perimeter partly with private money and tolls have made big news statewide. They may also have overshadowed news just as stunning: the project’s sheer size.</p>
<p>The total expansion project from the Perimeter to Hickory Grove Road, north of Wade Green Road, on I-75 and up to Sixes Road on I-575 would gobble up nearly 200 more acres along the highways.</p>
<p>“It’s overwhelming,” said Melissa Hart, a Marietta resident who came to a recent public information meeting on the project. “It’s overkill.”</p>
<p>State transportation officials insist it’s necessary. Partly because of long-haul freight, peak traffic already turns the interchange with I-285 into one big truck stop, and it’s only going to get worse, they say.</p>
<p>“Traffic volumes on I-75 are approaching values very seldom seen throughout the country,” said Darryl VanMeter, a state Department of Transportation engineer who is directing the project.</p>
<p>Preliminary projections show I-75 traffic rising from 347,000 vehicles a day now to a possible 401,000 by 2030, VanMeter said.</p>
<p>A list the Federal Highway Administration keeps of the biggest American highways already puts I-75 at the top, with 15 lanes across at some points. </p>
<p>The I-75 project is still being developed, but the current concept would put the highway in the 20-plus class, adding four lanes in each direction.</p>
<p>Mike Meyer, a Georgia Tech professor, recently told a California audience about adding four lanes on each side of I-75. “The reaction from California people, of all places, was, ‘My gosh, you can’t really do that,’” Meyer said.</p>
<p>“One person even looked at me and said, ‘Are you really telling the truth?’ I assured her that this is what’s being proposed.”</p>
<p>The state Department of Transportation’s original plan for I-75 was to add two HOV lanes to each side. But then the idea of truck-only toll lanes started taking hold across the country.</p>
<p>The little-tested concept was making big waves while a consortium of road builders called Georgia Transportation Partners was honing its proposal to invest private money in the I-75/I-575 project under Georgia’s new “public-private initiative” law.</p>
<p>The companies proposed that the four HOV lanes also be open to single drivers if they chose to pay, with the toll price rising during peak traffic to keep those lanes less congested.</p>
<p>And since these privately financed road expansions generally use tolls to pay off the construction, and the road’s existing lanes can’t be tolled, truck-only lanes were a natural addition. Four more toll lanes were added, for trucks only. A rapid transit bus system would run in the HOV lanes.</p>
<p>DOT planners are quick to point out that the project is only in the initial planning stages, and results of studies now being conducted could change it. Part of those studies is a more detailed account of how successful truck-only lanes might be.</p>
<p>DOT officials often note that the Georgia Motor Trucking Association is on board with truck-only lanes. They rarely note the association’s big caveat: It is absolutely opposed to mandatory use of the lanes, as they are in the private proposal. If truckers don’t get to choose between truck-only lanes and main lanes, they say they’ll go straight to court.</p>
<p>“We would not sit idly by,” said Ed Crowell, president of the association. “We’d find a way to tie it up forever.”</p>
<p>Another issue is what happens to all that bigger, beautifully sorted traffic once it hits I-285 and bottlenecks into the same old skinnier roads. “That’s part of the challenge, isn’t it?” said Tom Weyandt, planning director at the Atlanta Regional Commission.</p>
<p>“That is a huge concern, we recognize,” added VanMeter of DOT. “The goal of the department is to integrate the system into the I-285 corridor as well. But you have to start somewhere.”</p>
<p>And then there’s the right of way: long swaths of land totaling 182 acres the DOT will need along the highways and for transit stations. As bad as it is — perhaps taking out whole apartment buildings, trailers, a Kmart and more — officials say they are striving and spending extra to keep the footprint in check. For example, they say they’re moving the center lane of I-75 to save a cemetery and to use right of way they already own. It could have been worse, they emphasize.</p>
<p>Nothing so big comes without controversy. Betty Hunter of Marietta said she understands that. But it’s hard, ever since she walked into a meeting about the project and saw an X marked over her little church on Frey’s Gin Road, near the highway. (It’s near the Big Chicken, too, but the bird is farther away, and safe.)</p>
<p>The modest red-brick church building was surrounded by empty land and the occasional business when Hunter started attending it 40 years ago, she said. Back then it was still being built and services were in the basement.</p>
<p>“I have mixed emotions,” she said, noting that she had been a Marietta city councilwoman and felt the highway was progress for the area. But she wonders if her church would be able to afford the same amount of land in the same area with what DOT will pay for taking it.</p>
<p>“It’s very small, but it’s paid for,” she said. “We’re just in limbo right now.”</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>THE BIG TIME</p>
<p>This is a list the Federal Highway Administration keeps of big American highways at their biggest points. Some big highways apparently are not on the list, and the rankings depend on how you count. </p>
<p>State…Lanes…Route</p>
<p>Georgia…15…I-75</p>
<p>California…14…I-405</p>
<p>Georgia…14…I-75</p>
<p>Georgia…14…I-85</p>
<p>New Jersey…14…I-95</p>
<p>New York…14…I-95</p>
<p>Florida…13…I-95</p>
<p>Georgia…13…I-75</p>
<p>Georgia…13…I-85</p>
<p>Georgia…13…I-285</p>
<p>Maryland…13…I-270</p>
<p>The biggest shocker: 6 of the widest 10 freeways in the nation are already in Atlanta! And, it’s still in the top 5 worst traffic cities!</p>