The
Blogsite

Steve Williams, Blogmaster

I-75 South Georgia Widening Is Done!!!

Print the article

This entry was posted on 4/16/2011 2:52 PM and is filed under uncategorized.


After $750,000,000 and 25 years, the widening of I-75 in south Georgia is complete. WOO-HOO!!!

As a result of this widening, motorists now have at least 3 lanes (including I-475 in Macon) in either direction from Chattanooga, Tennessee, to Florida's Turnpike. Hopefully, Florida DOT (FDOT) will get the stretch from the Turnpike to Tampa widened sometime in our lifetime, but we shall see.

According to the Georgia DOT press release announcing this event, there are hopes that this widening will bring industry to south Georgia. I'm not so sure that this will necessarily be the "Field of Dreams" that local leaders along the I-75 corridor hope it will be, but I'm very sure that it will be an improved drive for me and other fellow motorists who travel to and from Florida along "The Main Artery of Georgia".

Speaking of "arteries", the most interesting example of how this "artery" can get clogged was a few years ago when Mary and I were traveling back to GRG HQ from Florida. As part of the widening of a stretch between Tifton and Valdosta, all of I-75's traffic was temporarily squeezed into a very narrow section that would become a widened southbound carriageway. It was already cramped as it was and had a temporary speed limit of 50 MPH (80 km/h). Somewhere along this stretch, there was a pretty bad wreck involving a tractor-trailer (IIRC) and it had FUBARed northbound traffic for several miles. Once we finally crawled our way to the wreck site, local authorities had detoured traffic onto an exit ramp and then back down the entrance ramp and we boogied along our merry way.

With this widening being done, I am soooooo looking forward to nice, smooth 70 MPH (110 km/h) ride to Florida. Aw, heck, I may even shoot some rockin' "ROADGEEK-CAM!!!" footage of it to share with y'all. In the meantime, if you've been boogiein' along this newly fully-widened "main artery" and would like to share your thoughts, then please do so either via this blog or our official Facebook page.

That's it for now. Thanks to GDOT for the news and thanks to y'all for reading. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.


 

What did you think of this article?




Trackbacks
Trackback specific URL for this entry
  • No trackbacks exist for this post.
Comments
    Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

    • 4/16/2011 8:40 PM Kim wrote:
      I will be going down that way in June en route to Florida. The last time I was in that area was in 2006 and it was awful, especially in Atlanta.
      Reply to this
    Leave a comment

    Submitted comments are subject to moderation before being displayed.

     Name

     Email (will not be published)

     Website

    Your comment is 0 characters limited to 3000 characters.



      
    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    .