Proposed South Thomasville By-Pass

Recently, I was looking at Thomasville, Georgia (population 18,413 as of 2010), on a Google Map and the roadgeek in me had an idea for adding a brand new southern by-pass of this southwest Georgia city.

Here is a map of how Thomasville’s major highways presently look and the route that trucks coming from Valdosta would need to take to go to Tallahassee…

ThomasvilleGA_Map

As you can see from the above image, traffic (especially truck traffic) that would be travelling between Tallahassee and Valdosta via US 319 and US 84 would have to go all the way around the west and north sides of Thomasville.

To provide a more efficient Surface Transportation Assistance Act (STAA) route for trucks having to travel between Tallahassee and Valdosta, I believe that adding a South Thomasville By-Pass (which I would designate as Georgia State Route 300 Connector), would be in order. Here’s a map showing my proposed route…

South_Thomasville_Byp1

To facilitate the smooth flow of traffic, the South Thomasville By-Pass would be a four-lane limited-access divided highway. The only access points would be at the western (US 319/GA 35) and eastern (US 19/GA 3/300) ends.

Please let me emphasize that this is not something that I believe neither Georgia DOT (GDOT), nor Thomas County, nor the City of Thomasville has proposed. Even if this were to be proposed, it would probably not be built anytime soon, as GDOT would be required to do preliminary studies and environment impact analysis (among other things) which could take years before the first shovel breaks ground. Given the current situation with the Federal Highway Trust Fund, getting any Federal funds would be “wishful thinking” at best. However, as a roadgeek, the prospect of such a route does seem pretty cool. 🙂

What are your thoughts about such a road? Do you think such a road would be useful? Why (or why not)? If you are a reader from the Thomasville area, I’d really love to know what you think. Please feel free to share your thoughts by either commenting on this blog or on our Facebook page.

Well, folks, that’s all for now. We’re currently celebrating the 4th of July by watching “A Capital Fourth” on our local Georgia Public Television station. Thanks for reading and may you and yours have a very happy and safe 4th of July weekend.