GA

Northern Arc Investors

Mark Boyd, a businessman in Cumming GA, is working to put together a team of investors to build Atlanta’s Northern Arc toll road, an east-west highway that is now on the regional transport plan. A major investment study on the 94km (59mi) c$1.1b road is nearly finished. Two alignments are in contention but they both roughly follow GA-20 from Cartersville on I-75 in Bartow co through canton on I-575, Cumming on GA-400 to I-985 and I-85 at Buford, possibly to Dacula on GA-316 in Gwinnett co. The road is approx 50km to 60km (30 to 40mi) north of central Atlanta and would be the first major east-west route north of the I-285 loop. (TRnl#39 May 1999 p8)

A source of contention could be the Atlanta Regional Commission’s support for the toll road conditioned on it being designed solely for longdistance traffic with no local interchanges and set in a 600m (2,000') scenic easement. Discouragement of ‘sprawl’ was the rationale for those restrictions, but of course one guy’s undesirable sprawl is another guy’s local jobs, new business, enhancement of land values and the tax base, plus traffic and toll revenue. Initial plans for the road showed 12 interchanges vs 6 as approved by the planners.

The Northern Arc got its name as the highest priority piece of a complete outer Perimeter Loop, much of the remainder of which looks to be unjustified. Boyd says he is getting support of local governments for his idea of doing the toll road with risk capital. (Contact Mark Boyd, 770 781 5550x243 mboyd@america.net)