Georgia has received over $1,000,000,000 in transportation money as per the recently-passed American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, $932,000,000 of said funds earmarked for roads and bridges.

At his point, I have seen an initial list of $202,000,000 worth of so-called "shovel-ready" (Phase 1) projects drafted from the Atlanta Regional Commission. Said projects include (but are not limited to) repaving of GA 9 through parts of North Fulton and Forsyth Counties, traffic signal upgrades in DeKalb County, and extending McGinnis Ferry Road from Satellite Boulevard to Lawrenceville-Suwanee Road (GA 317) in Gwinnett County. Please click here to see the entire list.

According to an article in today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Georgia DOT spokesperson David Spear said that drivers should see road crews and the barrels on the roads sometime in May.

GDOT has set up their own economic stimulus website, but they have yet to post a list of statewide projects. Hopefully, GDOT will have that statewide list approved and posted soon.

While I am glad to see that the funds will help in much-needed road maintenance and improvements within the Metro Atlanta area, I am curious to see what major projects statewide will benefit. For instance, GDOT had pushed for Bartow County's US 411 Connector to be included, since the path and design from I-75 to the US 41/US 411 interchange has been decided and the environmental impact statement has already been approved by the Federal government. Now, it's just a matter of purchasing the land and starting construction.

Will the economic stimulus funds for transportation (among other things) help Georgia? I don't know, but if history is a good indicator, the Great Depression did not end overnight once Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office in 1933, and, last I checked, Barack Obama doesn't possess any extraordinary powers to end our current economic woes.

As an American, I am willing to give the modern-day "New Deal" a chance and see what happens. My hope is that the funds will be wisely spent in a way that will benefit all of us in the long run.

In the meantime, I'm still on the lookout for the statewide list of projects. If you have any insight, or just want to express your own opinion regarding the transportation economic stimulus funds, then please feel free to post a comment.

Finally, on a personal note, I had a major "traffic jam" of my own going on in one of the arteries supplying blood to my heart. A nuclear cardiac stress test helped to catch it and I have since had a "heart cath" and 2 stents installed.

Traffic jams on the roads are bad enough, but a traffic jam in your arteries (especially at 95% blockage) can be downright deadly if left untreated. Thanks to the medical teams at my doctor's office in Alpharetta, the cardiologist in Sandy Springs, and Saint Joseph's Hospital's cardiac care unit for all their help and care, and a big "thank you" to my wife Mary, my family, and my friends for all their thoughts, prayers, and support.

That's it for now. Thanks for reading and please visit often.

 

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