Rocky Face, Carbondale interchanges top projects list

Published 11:53 pm Saturday, January 13, 2007

Whitfield County officials say they got a lot of good news during a recent meeting with Georgia transportation commissioner Harold Linnenkohl. Linnenkohl, they say, promised financial and other backing for any transportation-related Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) they might pursue.

They also got an open discussion of some of their concerns about state projects that might affect the Dalton area. At the top of the list of those concerns is a $13.131 million redesign and reconstruction of the I-75 interchange at Rocky Face.

The Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) is still doing the preliminary engineering for that project. But according to GDOT statements, the interchange will be reconfigured as a partial cloverleaf, and the north-bound and south-bound exit ramps will be rebuilt. The bridge over Highway 41 will also be lengthened to accommodate the future addition of more lanes to I-75.

Greg Hood, GDOT District 6 planning engineer, says the department expects to receive funding to buy right of way in its 2008 budget. Construction is not expected to begin for at least six more years, he says.

GDOT also plans a $9 million renovation of the interchange at I-75 and Carbondale Road. Hood says the department is still working on environmental clearance for that project. GDOT expects to receive funding to buy right of way in the 2007 budget, and work is scheduled to begin in 2009.

The Carbondale project will remove and replace the existing bridge over I-75 with a longer and wider structure to provide for increased traffic and to accommodate the addition of more lanes to I-75, according to information provided by GDOT spokeswoman Crystal Paulk-Buchanan. Additional work on the interchange will relocate and lengthen the entrance and exit ramps. GDOT estimates the work will take 30 to 36 months once it starts.

But those schedules assume the General Assembly approves enough money for roadwork to cover those projects.

“If there’s no money, they could get pushed back,” said Paulk-Buchanan.

And talk like that concerns local officials, who point to congestion and safety concerns about those interchanges, especially the interchange at Rocky Face.

GDOT doesn’t track how many vehicles exit and enter the interstate at particular interchanges. But the annual average daily traffic count for I-75 in Whitfield County ranges between 65,820 and 73,320, according to GDOT. That represents the total number of vehicles that travel a particular stretch of I-75 in both directions divided by the 365 days in a year.

And officials expect those numbers to grow.

“Part of the conversation with him (Linnenkohl) was to emphasize that we don’t feel (delaying the Rocky Face work) is a good move,” said Whitfield County Board of Commissioners chairman Brian Anderson.

Among other problems, there’s a very sharp curve in the southbound exit ramp that some local people believe is a hazard.

Anderson says Linnenkohl promised to look at the project and find out if it might be delayed and why.

The reconstruction of those interchanges isn’t the only work being planned for I-75 as it passes through Whitfield County.

GDOT has the widening of I-75 to eight lanes from Gordon County into Catoosa County also on its project list. But Hood says that work is currently on the long-range schedule — at least six years out — and funding hasn’t been targeted for any year yet.

The 30-year transportation plan drafted two years ago by the Dalton-Whitfield County Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) calls for extending both Brickyard Road and Waugh Street out to I-75 and creating new interchanges at those intersections. Both of those projects are in the long-term — 11 to 30 years out — part of the plan.

“Right now, there’s nothing concrete other than that those are some of our long-term recommendations,” said Davonna Morgan, transportation planning coordinator for the North Georgia Regional Development Center (NGRDC). The NGRDC handles staff work for the MPO.