New timeline for connector to I-75: 2025
GDOT plans to select a route this year and start environmental studies.
CARTERSVILLE — Nearly 400 people came out Thursday night to get a close look at the two proposed routes for the Rome-Cartersvile Development Corridor. If all goes as planned, drivers could be using the link from U.S. 411 through Bartow County to Interstate 75 by 2025.
DeWayne Comer, district engineer for the Georgia Department of Transportation, said consultants will compile the comments received and the state is expected to decide on a preliminary design this year. He doesn’t have a preference, other than seeing the long-awaited road built.
“If you can take some traffic off (U.S.) 41 … any time you can offer another route, it’s going to help everybody,” he said.
Both alternatives would be constructed for average speeds of 65 mph, with four lanes divided by a 44-foot median.
Starting from U.S. 411 coming from Rome, they both cross over U.S. 41 — with options to enter and exit — then diverge at Mac Johnson Road.
Alternative 2B would dip slightly south and generally follow Old Grassdale Road to I-75. The route passes between some heavily populated subdivisions and an industrial area, with the interstate ramp on one side configured for easy access to AnheuserBusch and other plants.
The road would have three other access points: at Cass High School, Peeples Valley Road and Keith Road.
Alternative 3B runs just north of the subdivisions and would entail more construction. There would be an access point at a newly constructed Peeples Valley Connector, between Peeples Valley Road and Shinall Gaines Road, and frontage roads at I-75.
The road would open new areas for industrial development, including along the frontage roads.
GDOT spokesman Mohamed Arafa said the new road is meant to serve four main purposes, beginning with improved interstate access for existing and future economic development sites.
Other aims are to accommodate the increasing truck traffic, improve local access between residents and businesses
and to make a connection from the west to I-75.
“This way, we support economic development in both Floyd and Bartow counties,” he said.
Once the state decides on a preliminary design, he said, environmental studies will get underway. That will likely take about two years. Right of way acquisition is expected to take another two years.
“We hope to put it out for construction bids in the summer of 2022,” Arafa said. “A project of this magnitude takes about three years to build so, hopefully, we will have it ready by 2025 for both the traveling public and local businesses and industries.”
Documents from the open house, including maps of the two proposed routes, are available on the GDOT public outreach website. Use the drop-down menu box to find the Rome Cartersville Development Corridor project page.
Comments can be made online at the project page or by mailing them to Mr. Eric Duff, Georgia Department of Transportation, 600 W. Peachtree St. NW, 16th Floor, Atlanta, GA 30308. The deadline is Sept. 8.
Comer, who lives in Rome, said he wasn’t surprised at the turnout for the two-hour open house at Faith United Methodist Church on Grassdale Road.
“A lot of us drive through, but a lot of these people are here because what we do affects them personally,” he said.