Toll project for Savannah port?

By Ariel Hart

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The state Department of Transportation hopes by June 2010 to propose a toll road project under the state’s new transportation law, a DOT lawyer told a legislative committee meeting Tuesday.

Possible projects include old saws like adding toll lanes along Ga. 400 or I-75/I-575 in Cobb and Cherokee counties.  But efforts on those two under previous laws ran into so many obstacles that DOT may try to jump-start the program with something else first, DOT officials have said, like the proposed Jimmy Deloach Parkway near the Savannah port.  DOT has also applied for a federal stimulus grant for the port project.

The state’s program to build toll roads with private money has floundered since its start in 2003, and the Legislature rewrote the whole law this year.  DOT on Tuesday explained the new process to the House and Senate transportation committees, which will have to vote on steps DOT drew up.