The proposed hi-way would be a boon for Savanna, Knoxville, Augusta and a large number of small towns. Especially, though, it would make my life easier. Heck with the snail darters and spotted owls, BUILD IT!
Opponents of a proposed interstate highway from Savannah to Knoxville, Tenn., hope to move its potential route to South Carolina to avoid any environmental or economic disruption of north Georgia's mountains.
"We don't want I-3 at all," said Reagan Williams, an aide to 10th District U.S. Rep. Paul Broun.
Mr. Broun's predecessor -- the late Charlie Norwood -- won funding for an Interstate 3 feasibility study in 2005.
The $1.3 million study has already been signed into law and can't be "de-funded," but perhaps alternate routes could be evaluated, Mr. Williams told members of the Sierra Club's Savannah River chapter Tuesday night.
"The study is going to happen," he said. "But we'd like to write into the study to look at alternate routes."
The current proposal calls for the 450-mile highway to run from Savannah to Augusta and along the Georgia side of the Savannah River through the mountains to Knoxville.
A possible South Carolina route could run from the end of Bobby Jones Expressway in North Augusta and run along the South Carolina side of the Savannah River. But there is little support for moving the study area.
Mr. Broun convinced the federal Highway Administration to postpone a request for proposals that would give prospective firms 90 days to submit bids for the study, Mr. Williams said.
Environmental groups have joined forces as the Stop I-3 Coalition to prevent an interstate highway that would bisect mountain wilderness, said Holly Demuth, the group's director.
Most major highway projects, she said, are conceived by professional transportation planners.
The I-3 plan, she said, was the idea of a politician and has never been backed by the federal or state highway departments.
In addition to damaging environmentally sensitive areas, the road would not -- as proponents have argued -- alleviate traffic in the Atlanta area, and more than likely would affect small north Georgia towns that are bypassed by the highway.
Reach Rob Pavey at 868-1222, ext. 119 or rob.pavey@augustachronicle.com.
Comments
The proposed hi-way would be a boon for Savanna, Knoxville, Augusta and a large number of small towns. Especially, though, it would make my life easier. Heck with the snail darters and spotted owls, BUILD IT!
Let's just cover the entire state with concrete.
A lot of people who have no understanding or consideration for the benefits are against it. A person who understood the economic and employment benefits it can bring to the state and area proposed it. You might want to take the lid off your box and reconsider a few things, oil prices among them!
I suppose the purpose of the highway is so we can name yet another structure after this soon-to-be-forgotten CSRA politician. I am from the NC mountains and have lived in North Georgia and can tell you this will not make life easier for anyone except long-haul truckers. More money for concrete when what we need are rails. If you had ever lived in the mountains you would be sad about their destruction not happy about destroying the environment.
So the delay in the I-3 study, which would bring jobs to the area and boost the Port of Savannah, is having Paul Broun in office? Can July get here fast enough to vote against this guy?
I drive to Knoxville often. I look forward to this road. I also look forward to the end of Broun's nuisance phone calls with town meetings, junk mail in my mailbox, and his anti-Augusta stands.
Wrong. Building an Interstate highway. Think about it. Unless it goes through your town, you could really care less about an interstate. And it would miss a lot of towns. The Congressman is right to recommend that it at least use the existing interstates next door in SC instead of bisecting the North GA mountains. What would that accomplish? Cut an hour off your travel time for all those trips you make to Kentucky? Spend billions of dollars, change the landscape forever, and make the towns between here and Kentucky irrelevant and economic wastelands? Think about it.
They are wastelands already and dying on the vine, proximity to an interstate highway can be a boost to local economies if the pols aren't greedy to line their own pockets and market it properly. If it were going through Athens I'll bet Mr Broun would be driving it like he stole it!
Savannah already has I 16 and I 95. Why not just run a spur from Augusta to 26 betweeen Columbia and Greeneville. Augusta gets better north south access and you don't impact the mountains.
Keep that crap on the Georgia side of the river!!!
LF, let's just cover Atlanta with concrete and I don't mean more highways.
I have a website at www.deepsouthroads.org giving the positive sides of Interstate 3 and refuting many of the what I believe to be shady attempts of the activist opponents to sabotage the road. I recently wrote an open letter to Congressman Broun and there are a couple of recent letters to the editor concerning this issue. The open letter is easily accessible at the left sidebar on the website.
Any who are interested are encouraged to check out the website which contains much information, mostly as published in local Towns County newspapers during a period of some two and a half years.
Thanks for your time.
how about first in line, Interstate access to Savannah from Augusta, then reproject that same highway from Augusta to Cornelia , you cross I-85 and 441. I am not for anymore landscape ripping, it is good to have undeveloped counties and towns. I am out of this area as soon as I possibly can, too many cars. This from a born and raised Augustan.
450 mile highway, how much time are you actually going to save? That takes about 8 hours of driving, if you cannot make Knoxville from Savannh in 8 hours now something is wrong with your humvee.
It never ceases to amaze me short sighted ignorance of a majority of people in this country. Economic boon? Just how much population and super highways are enough? There is a DIRECT CORRELATION between the number of residents and corresponding traffic/congestion and the quality of life in a given local geographical region. Want the urban rat race/ suburban sprawl then move to Atlanta or Charlotte or Baltimore or New York Los Angeles Houston etc etc. This economy is a post industrial one where jobs are created in the minds of entrepreneurs then grown into successful businesses.If you need an interstate highway (which once constructed will re-arrange what WAS the landscape forever) to make you feel economically secure then you lack imagination & self motivation. If you want to save a couple of hours on a sojourn from Savannah to Knoxville causing forever more the aesthetic maligning of thousands and thousands of acres of this beautiful country then you are afflicted with insatiable greed. But here is the bottom line. If the politicians (whether they be of the democrat/socialist stripe or the republican stripe) want it built then by God it will be built. The public will be damned
Do you think that creating a North/South interstate that turns Augusta into a confluence like Columbia, which is only 60 minutes away, might be considered a Congressional earmark by some? A little hypocritical wouldn't you say, unless you embrace earmarks. Besides, just how fast do you think a trip to Savannah needs to be from Augusta?
The Augusta Chronicle ©2012. All Rights Reserved.
