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which speeds up the project because they’re doing concurrent work,” said McMurry. “It’s sort of like an analogy
of building a skyscraper where you have an engineer design the structural aspects of the building and you start
constructing the building but you haven’t pictured floor
coverings. You haven’t decided what color you’re going
to paint on the walls or what the ceiling may look like.
But you’re already building the project. And that’s what
we’ve done on this project so they can advance it faster
than our traditional type of project.”
Leveraging state funding
The other aspect of interest in this project is GDOT
is working with the private sector to finance the project
for about three to four years after it’s completed. They
pay the contractor periodically for deliverables while
they’re building it, but once it’s complete they pay them
a stipulated amount over the next three to four years to
pay for the entire cost of the project.
“The reason we do that is to basically leverage our
state funds and not have so many state funds locked
up and so that way we can continue to advance other
projects,” said McMurry.
“We’re also finishing up one of our biggest projects as
well down in Savannah at I-16 and I-95. Another freight
bottleneck that we have upgraded, dealing with the tremendous amount of traffic that is coming out of the port
at I-16 in the intersection of I-95,” added McMurry.
“We’re focusing on moving people and moving
freight and trying to eliminate some of the major bottlenecks that we all know about. And so that is another
successful project, but also strategically in that area on
the coast being responsive to our continued growth
and manufacturing that Gov. Brian Kemp has led over
his two terms.”
McMurry also noted the ongoing work on the State
Route 400 Express Lane project that starts in Sandy
Springs and goes up into the southern part of Forsyth
County at McFarland Road. It’s about 16 miles and part
of a public-private partnership GDOT is excited about.
The developer team is State Route 400 Peach Partners
that’s made up a consortium of three international
equity companies and contractors. This project builds
new optional express lanes, two lanes in each direction
along 400.
Rail station so that you can get into a high capacity
vehicle. I like to call it Express Lane Transit. Instead
of Bus Rapid Transit, the bus will be able to leave the
North Springs MARTA Station and hop directly into the
express lane,” said McMurry.
The first station will be at Holcomb Bridge Road in
Roswell right in the express lane. Right in the middle
of 400. There will be a platform and sort of like a train
station at Holcomb Bridge Road and then the next station location right off the express lanes in the middle
will access the back of North Point Mall. And then the
final station location platform is at the Windward Road
Parking ride lot for MARTA, which is already slated for
a transit-oriented development.
“So we will basically have an extension of the heavy
rail except just on rubber tires. We’re very excited to
integrate that in part of the project,” said McMurry.
supply chain “port” in the mountains
Years ago, thanks to some forward thinking from the
leadership at the Georgia Ports Authority, there was a realization that there was only so much space— no matter
how brilliant McMurry is— on the interstates and rails
around Savannah or Brunswick. The Appalachian Regional Port (ARP) opened in 2018 and has been expanding at a quick pace since then. This year, it achieved its
MARTA Cooperation in the mix
The project also basically rebuilds most of the state
Route 400 pavement along the corridor. And GDOT is
adding new interchange locations along the corridor.
The project was done in concert and in cooperation
with the MARTA system, so GDOT will be building
three bus rapid transit stations along State Route 400.
“We’ll have the tie-in station at the North Springs
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