Ga. 400/I-285 interchange may get funding

A massive project to reconstruct the interchange at Ga. 400 and I-285 may take a big step toward reality this week, perhaps its biggest step so far.

During a news conference scheduled for Wednesday, Gov. Nathan Deal is expected to announce a financial contribution toward the project from a local self-taxing business district. On the same day, a much larger piece of money may be freed up in votes by the Atlanta Regional Commission and possibly headed for the interchange.

After the T-SPLOST failed, Deal publicly made the half-billion-dollar Ga.400/I-285 project a priority. The question was how, since every transportation dollar expected for the region is already earmarked to other projects for the next 20 years. If regional policy-makers agree, the two moves expected Wednesday might mean a sizable first step of more than $80 million for the project.

» MORE: See which projects GDOT actively have in the works

The interchange is one of Georgia’s most congested, carrying 364,860 vehicles a day at last count, according to the state Department of Transportation.

In interviews Monday at a nearby shopping center, some drivers, but not all, supported the funding.

Though the cost is high, Dunwoody taxpayer Jose Jimenez, a recruiter, gives the project thumbs up. Though he works from home, he’s all too familiar with the congestion at the interchange. “Something needs to be done,” he said.

Kathy Toler, 64, has paid her share of Georgia gas taxes driving 70,000 miles a year between her home in South Carolina and Pill Hill, the medical complex near Ga. 400 and I-285, to receive care after her heart transplant four years ago.

Monday morning, the former Georgia resident said, congestion at the interchange made her late for a blood draw that was supposed to happen within a specific time window to evaluate how her medications are working. They took the blood anyway.

“It all bottles up and you cannot get the people to move,” Toler said. “It’s a lot of money, but it might save a lot of lives.”

But Snellville homemaker Debbie Dexter thinks there may be better uses for such a huge sum of money. If she leaves at exactly 7 a.m. — not 10 minutes later — she is nearly guaranteed to arrive on time at her kids’ school in Sandy Springs. If people plan, the state doesn’t need to spend so much on one project, she said. “I wouldn’t,” she said. “I don’t think it’s worth it.”

Although Deal declared the Ga. 400/I-285 project a top priority, that doesn’t mean he has the money. In the current project budget, the interchange isn’t funded until at least 2031, and even that’s somewhat speculative. That budget calls the interchange part of a much larger dream to rebuild the top end of I-285, probably with private toll money.

Under Deal, the state is studying how to carve out the interchange as a stand-alone job and find money to make it happen much, much sooner. That can happen in phases. But the longer it takes and the more phases it’s divided into, the more it will cost, ARC Chairman Tad Leithead said.

The project as proposed in the T-SPLOST cost $450 million. An additional piece, sorting lanes to the north along Ga. 400, would add an additional $190 million, and that may be out of reach even under current efforts.

Funding a $450 million project doesn’t mean finding that money all in one year. The money can be budgeted year by year: perhaps five years or more for preliminary work and construction.

A unanimous committee vote taken Friday at the ARC, and others to be held there Wednesday, would shift money, freeing up to $80 million for the state’s use without restrictions on where it should go. DOT Planning Director Toby Carr has told ARC members a likely candidate is Ga. 400 and I-285, though he stressed in interviews this week that the funding decisions would have to be weighed by the ARC first.

The freed-up bond money is made possible by what DOT officials say was a surplus of gas tax money resulting from closing out projects under budget and using buffer money that was set aside but not needed. The money would be switched around in the budget for a toll lane project on I-75 in Henry County.

Also Wednesday, Deal is expected to announce a smaller commitment of several million dollars from the Perimeter Community Improvement Districts, the self-taxing business group that pushes transportation projects for that area.

That’s a fraction of the total price tag, but altogether a big fraction.

The hard part is yet to come, if it does come: getting local officials to agree as a group to divert funds from other projects to this one. But the moves suggest serious work is afoot to make the project budget line up.

“The governor definitely intends to move forward and complete this project. He considers it a must-do,” said Brian Robinson, a spokesman for Deal. “Several events of late give us hope we’ll be able to deliver one of the largest road projects in Georgia history.”

Fulton County Commission Chairman John Eaves sits on the ARC board that will eventually vote on funding for the project. While he represents a swath of constituents from the southern crescent to the northern suburbs, where the interchange is located, he’s “certainly supportive” of funding the Ga. 400/I-285 project. “This is good news for Fulton County as well as the region,” he said. “That is one of the most congested interchanges in the country.”