Perhaps at the end of January, a preliminary design will be available for improvements to the interchange of Interstate 85 at Ga. Highway 74 in Fairburn.
One option is to add looping access roads leading from I-85 southbound onto Hwy. 74 southbound, and a second looping access road from I-85 northbound onto Hwy. 74.
The benefit of that design is that it would eliminate the need for a second traffic signal and thus allow traffic to flow more smoothly, according to Phil Mallon, the director of public works for Fayette County.
The second option is for a new design called a diverging diamond in which the northbound and southbound lanes will flip flop temporarily, which will help rid the intersection of left-turn conflicts that can clog up intersections.
Which design wins the day may well depend on the fate of the June vote on a 10-year regional transportation sales tax. If it fails, the diverging diamond solution would be much cheaper than the partial cloverleaf, Mallon said.
But County Commissioner Steve Brown said neither plan is enough for a significant fix because they won’t eliminate the problems with tractor trailer traffic from warehouses in the area which clog up the intersection of Hwy 74 and Oakley Industrial Boulevard, a short distance from the on-ramps.
Brown wants the fix for that to be the creation of a new northbound on-ramp and southbound off ramp for Ga. Highway 92 where many of the warehouses are located. And Brown is lobbying for that “half diamond” interchange to be limited to tractor trailer traffic only.
Brown said there is a good bit of land zoned for warehouses in the area, and once the economy ramps back up, so will the semi trailer traffic.
There is also a hope that the fix for the intersection will make way for a future improvement: an access road parallel to the interstate that would allow traffic to go between the interchanges for Hwy. 74 and Ga. Highway 138 on what is called a “collector distributor” system. Such a plan could also include Ga. Highway 92 if it ever gets interstate access.
Mallon said he thinks there seems to be “universal support” for such a future plan, and that the challenge is to figure out the best way to get those plans built up for future funding.
Currently Hwy. 92 is just an overpass floating above the interstate, with no ramp access whatsoever. And the final decision on improving access there rests with the Federal Highway Administration.
Mallon is hopeful that the benefits of improving safety and commerce will be enough to convince federal officials to approve the Hwy. 92 improvements.
And if approval is won, Brown is hoping that the engineering plans and land acquisition can move far enough along to qualify for a future federal government stimulus package if one ever materializes again.
Also, if the regional transportation sales tax passes, it will free up money the DOT has already encumbered for other projects in the region, Brown noted.
“If (it) passes, you’ve just freed up hundreds of millions of dollars with DOT,” Brown said. “That money’s going to go somewhere and that’s where we’ll fight to get what I call phase 2 of that interchange project built.”
As Brown points out, there are other entities at play as well in the transportation health or lack thereof in the Hwy. 74 corridor. He points to plans for a Cracker Barrel restaurant and a QT gas station on the Fairburn side of the intersection, both of which stand to cause more traffic conflicts with commuters hoping for a smoother ride to and from metro Atlanta in the morning and evening drive times.
What’s worse is that intersection has been approved for a traffic light, which will serve as another encumbrance for commuters, Brown said.
