Supporters of a proposed toll road that would bypass Atlanta to the west are considering shifting the route east to include more urban counties such as Fayette and Fulton.
A new alignment was raised after commissioners in two of the eight jurisdictions along the original route in west Georgia shot down the toll idea.
Blake Swafford, executive director of the Paulding Industrial Building Authority, and David Austin, Paulding Commission chairman, have pitched a 113-mile toll road stretching from Bartow to Lamar counties. The proposed Western Commercial Connector would be a four-lane divided road intended to alleviate traffic on interstates through Atlanta. The road would cost $2 billion, based on designs completed for Paulding IBA, and funded with tolls.
But Lamar and Carroll counties voted not to join a development authority this month, saying the project would destroy the rural atmosphere and not be a major benefit for their counties.
To get the road built, Bartow, Carroll, Coweta, Lamar, Paulding and Spalding counties and the cities of Cartersville and Villa Rica would need to form the development authority to oversee the project, according to Paulding’s plans. Thus far, only Paulding is participating.
“We began with an alignment that minimizes the impact on existing communities,” Swafford said this week. “If some counties want to stay rural then maybe looking at counties further east like Fayette and Fulton could be included.”
Swafford hasn't pitched the plan to the more eastern counties yet, but is reviewing different alignments.
Paulding IBA, which receives a portion of its funding from Paulding County, has spent $77,000 on legal and engineering fees for designs and traffic and revenue studies for the project, according to records reviewed by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Contractors working on the project for Paulding IBA met with Georgia Department of Transportation officials Tuesday to review design details. Unlike a $257 million toll project in Gwinnett County that would extend Ronald Reagan Parkway to I-85, the western connector proposal has had involvement from GDOT, partly because Paulding’s cost estimates have varied greatly from state numbers.
DOT’s cost projections were nearly double Paulding’s estimates, according to GDOT spokeswoman Jill Goldberg. The difference is attributed to right-of-way costs to acquire land along the road route. Private consultants -- such as Marietta-based Croy Engineering, which is working for Paulding IBA -- usually include land value only in their estimates, Goldberg said. GDOT includes the land value and accounts for other expenses such as court costs for litigation with property owners and the cost to relocate any existing property owners living on the land.
Swafford is still talking to counties about the roadway and supports the development authority and toll road model for getting road projects built.
“I think the project is in the same place as it was six months ago; it’s just a concept,” Swafford said this week. “We wanted to start a dialogue around traffic relief and something we think is still needed. To even call it a project at this point is a stretch.”
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