The Georgia Department of Transportation is holding a meeting to share details about significant upcoming changes to Georgia Highway 316. The hearing, which will take place on April 23 in Statham, is intended to share the results of a study and collect feedback from the community.
The highway is almost 40 miles long and connects metro Atlanta to the Athens Perimeter. It is the busiest highway route between the capital city and the state’s main university town.
The hearing will take place from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. at the Statham Community Center located at 336 Jefferson St. There will not be a formal presentation during the meeting. The study, as stated by DOT, is an analysis of a 40-mile portion of the highway that stretches from I-85 in Atlanta to the Oconee Connector in Oconee County.
“According to a release from DOT, the initial analysis of the study found that about 65 percent of the 40-mile corridor has crash rates that are higher than the average crash rate for the entire state.”
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The study started in 2022 and is expected to finish this autumn. The DOT report mentioned that the changes were made to improve safety, reduce traffic congestion, and support economic development.
The initial five miles of the highway in the Atlanta area is classified as a freeway. However, according to the Department of Transportation (DOT), there are plans to potentially extend it as a freeway from Buford Drive in Gwinnett County to the Athens Perimeter in Oconee County.
The study found that there are fewer accidents on the freeway sections compared to other highways in the state. However, there are more accidents on the non-freeway portion compared to similar roadways.
Three people died in a recent car accident at the intersection of State Route 11 between Bethlehem and Winder. There is currently a big construction project happening on the overpass there.
In 2021, Governor Brian Kemp and the Department of Transportation (DOT) announced a project worth $828.8 million. The project aims to reconstruct intersections. The study aims to discover ways to improve intersection and operations to make them safer.
“Our aim is not just to give information, but also to get input from the community, which we may include in the final recommendations of the study,” said Jomar Pastorelle, the project manager for the study at the Department of Transportation (DOT).
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