Henry County officials are moving forward with plans for a traffic impact study regarding a key area to the south.
The Board of Commissioners voted at its September 7 regular meeting to authorize county transportation planning director Sam Baker to proceed with the study, in partnership with Croy Engineering, regarding the traffic impacts of a plan by the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) to construct two truck- only lanes on I-75 North from Macon to McDonough.
Construction of the proposed lanes is slated to take place from 2026 through 2031. State officials say that traffic flow will be better north of exit 216 after the completion of the commercial vehicle lanes.
According to Baker, the main objective of the study is to verify GDOT’s findings on the county’s end and to devise a plan on what the county should do considering the truck-only lanes ending at a highly busy location in the center of the county.
“These two trucks-only lanes will come to an end at a very, very busy location at State Route 155. North of State Route 155 on I-75, the trucks will be forced to merge into the general-purpose lanes,” Baker said.
Baker went on to explain to the commissioners that in the study, a one-mile area around the intersection of I-75 and Hwy. 155 (exit 216) will be closely examined to study the land use and transportation in this area and anything Henry County should consider in light of the commercial vehicle lanes terminating at this location. The study will also perform three different scenarios of computer simulation of traffic flow on I-75 North between exit 216 and exit 227.
“The first one will be the current traffic flow without the commercial vehicle lanes constructed, number two, what will traffic flow be like with the commercial vehicle lanes as being planned and the third scenario, what will the traffic flow be like on I-75 from State Route 155 up to I-675, if those commercial vehicle lanes were extended farther north to I-675,” said Baker.
Board chair Carlotta Harrell expressed her concerns on where the proposed lanes would end and agreed that the study is much needed.
“I’m very concerned about where the lanes end. I’m concerned about the traffic that we already have and the traffic that we are going to be expecting to have as the truck traffic continues to increase out of the Port of Savannah,” she said.
This is a much needed study so that we have data to make our case to GDOT as well as the Atlanta Regional Commission.” said Harrell.
Johnny Wilson, who cast the lone dissenting vote regarding the study, said he needed more information before supporting it. “I would like to know what GDOT has before we start studying what they’ve already completed,” he said.
