Freight a concern for both rail, highway advocates
The rapid growth of the logistics industry, the movement of goods and products from one place to another, has become a huge player in the workforce in neighboring Bartow County.
As a result the Bartow Transportation Planning office and Cartersville- Bartow County Economic Development office have partnered to bring an intern on board in 2021 to help define growing needs that range from the impact on roads to housing.
Tom Sills, the Bartow County transportation planner recalls a study done by GDOT several years ago which predicted a 25% increase in freight traffic over the next 10-15 years.
“I think that has actually come to fruition,” Sills said. Just looking at the inter
state (75) every time I cross the bridge I’m seeing 50% of the traffic if not more is freight. It could be largely due to a depression of auto
mobile traffic but it’s just a huge number of trucks going up and down the road.”
Melinda Lemmon, executive director of the Cartersville-Bartow Economic Development office said that Bartow County has not only become a hotbed for distribution and warehousing projects, but that even the manufacturing firms that have landed in Cartersville over the last several years have a logistics component.
As supply chain demands have changed, with increasing focus of “just in time” deliveries, coupled with consumer shopping habits that have been trending to the internet.
The commission heard a report from OmniTrax consultant Brad Skinner this week indicating that key freight corridors such as I-75, I-85 and I-20 will need a lot of work and that should probably include additional strategic truck parking facilities.
The Georgia Freight & Logistics Commission is recommending that the General Assembly expand the role of the State Road and Tollway Authority — which oversees the toll lanes — to negotiating public-private partnerships for freight infrastructure projects across the state.
Bartow County sole Commissioner Steve Taylor said that one of the things that is being talked about, in terms of a partnership between the state and private enterprise, is the addition of lengthy side tracks along the major rail corridors.
The sidings, or double track that could accommodate trains up to 10,000’ in length would make it easier for some rail traffic to pull off to the side while other traffic continues to flow.
Sills said he’s been told not to necessarily expect a significant increase in rail traffic, but that as facilities such as the Inland Port in Murray County, a public-private project with CSX Railroad continues to grow, trains which might have been a mile and a half long could easily become 2 miles long in the future.
Taylor and Bartow County have benefitted from a partnership with Anheuser-Busch InBev to open up close to a thousand acres for a potential mega industrial park off I-75.
The new Rome-Cartersville Development Corridor Highway would funnel straight into that area once it is completed.
The latest entry to the distribution and warehousing development in Bartow County will be the Core 5 Industrial Partners Great Valley Commerce Center, being proposed for an 87-acre tract near the Highlands 75 Industrial Park off Cass-White Road north of Cartersville.
The Core 5 website claims that it intends to construct a 973,218 square foot building and have it ready for lease during the third quarter of 2021.