As the state Department of Transportation restarts its 6-year-old program for building toll roads with private investment, the staff’s priorities include projects on huge stretches of I-285, as well as parts of I-20, Ga. 400, northern I-75 and I-575, and an extension of Sugarloaf Parkway in Gwinnett County.
The proposed projects presented at a state Transportation Board work session Wednesday all require the board's approval and must undergo hearings with the public and other agencies to get a green light. It will be years before any of them opens to traffic in the best case, but DOT staff hope to put the first work out to bidders within months.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution was the first to report Monday that that would include a project to add optional toll lanes alongside I-75 and I-575 in Cobb and Cherokee counties. DOT staff hope to package that project and one along western I-285, continuing onto I-20 toward Thornton Road, and ask for bid proposals before the fiscal year ends in June, DOT Assistant Treasurer Earl Mahfuz said.
The state announced this week that it was abandoning its partnership with the private developer that originally proposed the I-75/I-575 project. DOT officials said a new law reorganizing transportation planning made that necessary, but that the real reason was that putting it out to bid would get the best project for the state.
Officials with the consortium that proposed the project, led by Bechtel Infrastructure Corp. and Peter Kiewit Sons' Inc., said they were disappointed but proud of the work they had done with the DOT, and they countered that they believed they had developed the best affordable project.
The state first allowed private investment in public toll roads in 2003, but the law has since been revised twice. DOT staff say the projects discussed Wednesday are part of a larger, more holistic toll-lane program they hope to build for metro Atlanta and the state.
The big question now is whether private investors will be interested and compete in light of the bumpy road Georgia has taken to get here. DOT staff say they are certain they will. The room Wednesday was full of investor lobbyists, and DOT staff said they had appointments lined up to discuss the program with a half a dozen companies that expressed interest. Whether they will be willing to spend the money to prepare bids -- which can cost well over $1 million -- remains to be seen.
Board member Dana Lemon questioned the choice of top projects. Lemon, who represents parts of Clayton and Henry counties, noted that the southern region of metro Atlanta were left out of the highest priorities for now.
“We need to make sure we’re investing in regions of Atlanta other than the north side of metro Atlanta always,” Lemon said.
Mahfuz said that the DOT intended to do all the projects on its list but had to choose what to do first, and these projects had scored best on objective measures. Those measures included congestion, how far advanced the project was, and political and public interest. After the meeting, Mahfuz said the DOT had not had time to poll the public but gauged opinion by talking to DOT staff in the project districts who had dealt with people in the area on project matters, and in some cases it talked again to local officials. He said other projects could be added to the list, or unforeseen obstacles could strike one from the list.
The I-75/I-575 project would add reversible tolled lanes alongside the highways. Drivers could enter if they were willing to pay a toll, which would rise and fall with traffic congestion on the main highway.
The project bundled with it would run from I-75 in Cobb County down to I-20. It could include part of I-20 out to Thornton Road.
Tim Heilmeier, a vice president for the engineering firm HNTB and consultant to the DOT, said no decision had yet been made on whether the other projects would need to put tolls on an existing lane of traffic, in addition to whatever lanes it would add.
A project on the top end of I-285 would place two toll lanes in each direction from I-75 to I-85.
On Ga. 400, the state would place two toll lanes in each direction from the Perimeter to Kimball Bridge Road, and then one in each direction to Peachtree Parkway.
The staff also suggested a completely new toll road, the “Gwinnett Connector,” extending Sugarloaf Parkway from Ga. 316 to Peachtree Industrial Boulevard.
Mahfuz said the state can’t say now what the toll price will be. On a project in California where tolls also are an option and rise with congestion, the highest price at the most congested time of the week is $1 per mile. Each of the projects proposed Wednesday is more than 10 miles long.
Separately, the DOT is also working on a couple of privately funded transportation projects that are unrelated to toll roads.
One would involve privatizing the state's highway welcome centers. The other would build a multimodal transit station in downtown Atlanta, to be funded in part by residential or office development above it. DOT board member David Doss, chairman of the committee that deals with the toll projects, said it was not inconceivable that the terminal could wind up among the first projects to get under way.
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