Get ready to see those orange construction barrels everywhere. Lots of construction is coming your way, one of Georgia’s top transportation officials told hundreds of metro Atlanta’s key decision makers in business and government Thursday.
Georgia Department of Transportation Commissioner Russell McMurry laid out a litany of projects estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars that are expected to transform a large swath of metro Atlanta’s southside.
"Just remember, it's progress," McMurry told hundreds gathered at the Georgia International Convention Center in College Park. Less than 10 miles away, the state's only reversible express toll lanes opened last month along a 12-mile stretch of Clayton and Henry counties, signaling more traffic-easing projects are on the way. Down the road, expect to see new entrance ramps, interchanges "truck-only" lanes and the like, McMurry said.
“Who has the newest lanes, the newest technology?,” he asked. “South metro.”
The conference is an annual networking event of key players in regional economic development and governmental policy-making and a day for them to focus solely on a side of metro Atlanta that tends to be overlooked.
“Southern Crescent is going to be one of our region’s secret weapons,” Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed told the crowd estimated at 600. “This is South metro’s moment.”
Transportation was a common thread throughout the daylong conference attended by an estimated 600 people.
Gerald McDowell, head of the Aerotropolis Community Improvement District, predicted the southside would see development explode in the next 10 to 15 years but it must have the right infrastructure. There are plans to bring a bus system to Douglas County, Douglas County Commissioner Chair Kelly Robinson said. Similarly, there are plans to change the face of the I-285 Camp Creek Market Place corridor.
“You won’t recognize the area in five years,” said conference organizer Michael Hightower, managing partner of The Collaborative Firm, a land-use planning and program management firm in south Fulton.
With so much planned, the southside needs to “have a stronger united voice so (others in) the region can begin to see the benefits of the southside,”Henry County Commission Chair June Wood told conference goers.
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