New $10 Billion Transportation Plan Expected to Win Georgia Legislature’s OK

Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal has unveiled a 10-year, $10 billion transportation plan.

It follows the passage last year of Georgia’s first fuel-tax increases since 1971.

The Legislature, which passed the Transportation Funding Act last July to address a $1 billion annual maintenance shortfall, is expected to approve Deal’s proposal during the next few weeks.

Office of Gov. Nathan Deal

“In order to maintain our roads and bridges, improve congestion and accommodate the movement of freight traffic, we could no longer afford to kick the can down the road,” Deal said in announcing his proposal Jan. 12 in Atlanta. “Legislators on both sides of the aisle took action, working together to pass legislation addressing these critical needs. Today, we are delivering on our promise.”

Among the projects that Deal wants to see done quickly with the revenue from the tax hikes to 26 cents on gasoline and 29 cents on diesel: reconstruction of the interchanges of Interstate 20 and I-285 on the east and west sides of Atlanta (more than $1.4 million combined); reconstruction of the interchange where I-95 and I-16 come together outside of Savannah ($244 million); and widening a 17-mile stretch of I-85 that runs through suburban Gwinnett County and Jackson County near Athens, home of the state’s flagship university ($605 million).

In the next 18 months alone, Georgia’s Department of Transportation expects to resurface more than 2,500 miles of roads, replace or renovate more than 400 bridges, rebuild more than 100 intersections and widen nearly 40 roads.

State DOT spokeswoman Natalie Dale said that some of the biggest projects will be built with public-private partnerships after the bid on the interchange of I-285 and Georgia 400, the state’s first P3, came in $300 million less than expected.

The Savannah project will be a boon to truckers using the nation’s fourth-busiest port, but the Georgia Motor Trucking Association is even more excited about the coming construction of trucks-only lanes on I-75 from Macon north toward Atlanta at an estimated cost of $2 billion.

“We’re very happy about the creation of dedicated truck lanes on I-75 south of Atlanta without tolling,” GMTA CEO Edward Crowell said. “Anyone who has driven I-20 or has tried to get in or out of the Port of Savannah knows about those maintenance needs. We have some interchanges that were designed in the 60s that are still operational but aren’t really functional.

“The DOT has done a very good job of prioritizing what funds it had over the years to try to keep things going as best they could, and now they’re getting a chance to chip away at the backlog,” Crowell said.

He said that he believes that the governor’s plan will happen. Georgia DOT already has approved a lot of it and has just been waiting for funding.

“In a nutshell, this is the way government’s supposed to work,” Crowell said. “When you ask the public for more tax dollars, they want to see some work done. It’s a nice way to start the year.”

Georgia DOT traditionally resurfaced 6% to 7% of the system, producing a 15-year resurfacing cycle. However, only 2% of the system was resurfaced in 2014, extending that cycle to 50 years.

“At the rate we were going, if a road got resurfaced when you graduated from high school, it wouldn’t be resurfaced again until you had retired,” Dale said. “Now if a road is resurfaced when children are born, it will be resurfaced again by the time they’re driving on them.”