Northwest Corridor HOV/BRT

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Northwest Corridor HOV/BRT is a Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) plan to put HOV lanes and bus rapid transit along Interstate 75 and Interstate 575 in the northwestern suburbs of metro Atlanta. It would carry commuters between Atlanta and Cobb County, and beyond in Cherokee County, Georgia by adding two lanes for high-occupancy vehicles along I-75, with one continuing up a dedicated HOV exit onto I-575 to Sixes Road (mile 11, former exit 6), and the other straight on I-75 to Wade Green Road (mile 273, former exit 118). North of the highway interchange where they split, the new lanes would be put in the road median, between the existing northbound and southbound traffic. From the Perimeter (Interstate 285 on the northside) to I-575, the road has already been built with 12 to 16 lanes, which will require other solutions such as an elevated roadway, or perhaps destruction of many more homes and businesses alongside the highway by eminent domain, or both.

HOV-only exits would be built at roads which currently cross the highways, but have no access to it. Bus stations would also be built at these points, with park-and-ride parking lots. New lanes would be divided from the regular ones by concrete barriers, not just by white double-stripes as was done by GDOT inside the Perimeter. There are no plans to allow or even design for later contraflow lane usage for rush hours.

Criticisms of the plan include adding yet more lanes to already-oversized highways, and adding traffic to smaller roads by putting exits on them. Another major criticism is that it fails to consider commuter rail, light rail, or any other rail system seriously as an alternative. There are already state-owned rail tracks running CSX freight trains parallel to I-75, and Georgia Northeastern Railroad tracks branching off parallel to I-575, which would cost far less it terms of both money and disruption from construction. Though cleaner-burning natural gas buses would likely be used, there are no plans that call for them to be electric buses with an overhead double-catenary system, such as in Seattle and Edmonton. Part of the problem may also be that Georgia's constitution prohibits state gasoline tax money from being spent on anything except roads, which makes other alternatives like trains very difficult to fund.