This entry was posted on 9/19/2008 9:47 PM and is filed under uncategorized.
This week's Georgia road news is all about less money for road projects and (possibly) more tolls for motorists.
GDOT Money Woes
According to state auditors, the Georgia DOT (GDOT) had a $456,000,000 budget deficit for the fiscal year that ended July 31st.
According to an article on WSB Radio's website, GDOT Commissioner Dr. Gena Evans (FKA Gena Abraham, she recently married former GDOT board chair Mike Evans) reported that "$360 million of that deficit comes from overlooked contracts that were
put into file boxes but were never entered into the department's
accounting system" and that she "brought all 5 boxes of those files into my office and I went through them personally."
Local officials in Rockdale and Stephens Counties are apparently afraid of how it will affect their communties, the former being afraid of how it will affect state funding of local road projects and the latter afraid of how it will impact the widening of GA 17 (GRIP Corridor EDS-545). Here are the artlcies...
DOT spokesperson Crystal Paulk-Buchanan reported that, in light of the current funding crisis, GDOT "had about 9,000 projects in our system, and we can only do about 270 a year".
If I had any "say so" in the matter of picking and choosing which projects to fund, I would give projects that would help alleviate the traffic issues Metro Atlanta faces. As for the Governor's Road Improvement Program (GRIP), these so-called "developmental highways" (Fall Line Freeway, Savannah River Parkway, etc.) would be put at the very bottom of the proverbial "totem pole" as "nice to do, but not critical" projects.
One project I would, however, like to see GDOT carry through would be the US 411 Connector, which would alleviate the traffic problems around Cartersville and provide that necessary high-speed connection directly from I-75 and Atlanta to Rome. Currently, the only direct 4-lane connection from Rome to I-75 is GA 53, but that only allows easier access for traffic going to (or coming from) Calhoun, Dalton, Chattanooga, and points northward. IMHO, it makes even more sense to have a 4-lane connection to extend the current US 411/GA 20 4-lane to I-75. The route has already been picked, so I say that GDOT should go ahead and "git 'r done" (with apologies to Larry The Cable Guy).
HOV Tolls Proposed
According to Tuesday's Atlanta Journal-Constitution, GDOT has unveiled a $400,000,000+ proposal to put tolls on the 44 miles of existing Interstate HOV lanes starting in 2010. Please click here to read the article.
Given that this would be done in the existing HOV lanes, I'm not really sure how GDOT is going to be able to enforce toll payments on these lanes. I do know that North Carolina DOT had been evaluating vendors for their own "boothless" toll system proposals, where cameras would take photos of license plates, a computer application would look up the license plate number, and a bill would be sent to the vehicle's owner. Will Georgia pursue such a system, or would they integrate this with the existing Cruise Card that is accepted at the GA 400 tollbooth? Also, how are they going to know if the vehicle has multiple occupants without having a person or sophisticated camera surveillance system verify accordingly? Inquring roadgeek minds want to know.
Next Time On "GRG On BTR"...
Fellow roadgeek H.B. Elkins of Millenium Highway will be returning as my guest.
We will be talking about the upcoming Knoxville, Tennessee, roadmeet and his latest "roadgeek videos".
If you want to listen live, please tune into "GRG On BTR" at 9:30 PM Eastern Daylight Time (please check website for time in your particular timezone). After the broadcast ends, the podcast will be available soon afterward on both the website and via iTunes by the next morning. In any event, I hope you will listen and thank you in advance for doing so.
... and finally, a "shoutout" to...
... all the ham radio operators who I talk to on the Atlanta Radio Club's 146.82 MHz repeater during the afternoon drivetime. They really help make my 40-mile commute from the office back to GRG HQ a lot more bearable and they have really helped me to get more energized about being a ham. In fact, I feel more energized about ham radio than I ever did, and it's all thanks to "all y'all on 8-2". If you are curious about ham radio and are interested in learning more, then I strongly recommend you visit the American Radio Relay League's (ARRL) website.
That's it for now. Thanks for reading and please come back again.
Copyright 2007. Steve Williams. All rights reserved.
DISCLAIMER: "The Georgia Road Geek" is neither affiliated with, nor endorsed by, the State of Georgia, Georgia Department of Transportation, or any other federal, state, or local government agency.
