The Georgia Department of Transportation is currently in the planning stages for trucks-only lanes south of Atlanta on I-75, which the state says are intended to reduce freight congestion around the city.
The proposed lanes would allow trucks and other commercial vehicles to travel in barrier-separated lanes from four-wheel traffic. The preliminary proposal has the lanes going northbound from approximately the I-75/I-475 interchange near Macon to the McDonough area just south of Atlanta.
The Atlanta area is home to seven of the American Transportation Research Institute’s top 100 freight bottlenecks, including the I-75/I-285 interchange at No. 4. While the proposed lanes don’t extend all the way to this interchange, anything that eases congestion in the area will lead to an overall improvement, says Rebecca Brewster, president and chief operating officer of the American Transportation Research Institute.
“Anything that will improve the truck flow into Atlanta will be an improvement all the way around,” Brewster says. “This is one of many projects GDOT has on the books to improve congestion and traffic flow in and through Atlanta.”
A 2016 study for GDOT by Cambridge Systematics estimated the proposed lanes would reduce delays in this area of I-75 by 40 percent by 2030.
“By moving forward with this project, by 2030, building these lanes will cut down on congestion in this corridor by 40 percent,” says Natalie Dale, media and government relations liaison for GDOT. “That includes estimates for growth of the port and local communities. Having a 40 percent reduction on top of growth in 12 years is significant.”
While studies on trucks-only lanes have been done in other states, namely along the I-70 corridor, Georgia is the first state to get this far into the planning process. Dale says Georgia is the ideal state to try commercial lanes because of the state’s challenges with congestion from commercial vehicles and commuters, along with freight coming from the Port of Savannah.
