James_Jan-Feb_2026_web - Flipbook - Page 9
nless you are new
to Georgia, you are
likely aware that
Hartsfield-Jackson
Atlanta International Airport has been
the world’s busiest airport for nearly
30 years (never mind the COVID
year of 2020 when we were briefly
dethroned). Lesser known perhaps
is that the Port of Savannah is the
country’s third-busiest, behind Los
Angeles and New York. Interstate 75
in Atlanta is the country’s second
busiest highway, with an annual average daily traffic (AADT) of approximately 420,000. And Interstate 85
also cracks the top 25 list, with more
than 300,000 AADT. Those who
frequently travel on the downtown
connector where these two interstates briefly collide can confirm.
But as strong as those numbers
are, do they push us over New York
or Los Angeles? Are New York or Los
Angeles home to the world’s largest
courier company United Parcel Service (UPS)? What about the world’s
largest airline of Delta Air Lines?
Both of these companies and numerous other logistics companies—
Norfolk Southern, Blue Bird, major
Amazon distribution centers— call
Atlanta home.
This kind of dominance helped
Georgia to become one of the busiest places in the world for moving
people and freight in and through.
This is obviously a major source of
employment for the state but its impact on the economy is astounding.
According to a report from the Selig
Center for Economic Growth in the
University of Georgia’s Terry College
of Business, the total impact of Georgia’s logistics industry was $83.4
billion in 2021. Somewhere around
250,000 people are directly employed
as part of the industry, about 1 in 20
people in Georgia work in logistics.
lanes alongside the interstate
We generally call them “access
roads” (at least per the sign off of
Druid Hills Road along Interstate
85), but in some parts of the country they call them “frontage roads,”
or “service roads,” maybe “feeder
roads.” Anyhow, whatever you would
like to call them, expect to be seeing
more of them. The Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) has
a number of large interstate projects
underway that will feature some of
these types of lanes. GDOT Commissioner Russell McMurry points out
that two of those projects underway
are among the top 100 freight bottlenecks in the region. “That’s a list you
don’t want to be on,” said McMurry.
“But Georgia has a lot of freight.” Indeed— see above. And those bottlenecks have to be somewhere.
It is a mixed blessing. No one
likes to be in a bottleneck but states
that do not exactly have a bustling
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