In an era of continued austerity, the state must focus its limited resources on what we need, and the current needs are such that we must wait to build the projects that we merely want.
Improvements to the I-285/Ga. 400 interchange are a need, not a want, and this is a priority important to the entire state, not just to metro Atlanta.
Over a period of years reaching back prior to my administration, every state in the nation has struggled to fund must-do projects in the wake of the Great Recession. Even though Georgia has seen consistent growth in revenues for several years now, we still struggle to keep up with the growth in costs for k-12 education and health insurance programs.
In order to attract industry and grow our economy, the state provides a first-class transportation network that allows people to get across town or across the globe with the help of high-quality infrastructure. This network delivers goods and services to their destinations in a timely manner. However, the state gas tax and federal transportation dollars – our primary source of revenue for upkeep and new infrastructure – only stretch so far. In the wake of the transportation sales tax referendum loss in most regions of the state, Georgia must direct its limited resources toward projects that provide the biggest return, both in mobility and in economic development.
The I-285/Ga. 400 interchange tops this priority list. Without the $450 million that the sales tax would have provided for this project as well as $190 million in additional improvements nearby, we face a funding challenge and most certainly a delayed timeline. But the need is so pressing that the private sector has chipped in $10 million coming from the Perimeter Community Improvement District. While that’s far from the more than $500 million we’ll need to finish the project, it’s a significant investment. We will continue doing everything we can do to be ready to begin construction on this project after all federal environmental reviews are completed, expected to be in 2015.
The Perimeter Center on Atlanta’s Northside has burgeoned into one of the state’s most important wealth-generating and jobs-creating areas. In fact, it ranks as the dominant office market in metro Atlanta.
Perimeter houses 500 companies, including 47 corporate headquarters, of which three are Fortune 500. With those businesses come 123,000 employees, and 90 percent of them commute.
Congestion threatens the prosperity of this popular business site. The ride to work is already predictably slow and frustrating, and it will only get worse without significant improvements. If we did nothing, by 2030, the average speed around this interchange would drop to 20 mph.
The improvements to this interchange are just one part of the Department of Transportation’s Revive 285 plan. We’ll need to replace the bridge, improve the ramps funneling vehicles from one highway to the other and add lanes.
There are no easy answers, no quick fixes. But what we do have is a list of priorities and a lot of determination. We will get this done, and all of Georgia will benefit from it.
