It’s about the future of transportation strategies and land use planning in south metro Atlanta. It includes six counties, 29 municipalities and two regional development centers. Its goal is to present a long-term vision for Southside transportation issues in a rapidly growing metro Atlanta population expected to add 2 million people in the next 25 years.

A Dec. 1 project kickoff workshop of the Southern Regional Accessibility Study at the Fayetteville Library brought a meeting room full of people together to begin a process geared to address many of the long-range needs of what may become the fastest growing area of metro Atlanta. The study is funded by Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) and Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT).

Fayette Commission Chairman and ARC board member Greg Dunn opened the meeting. He said the six counties involved in the study know what they want. Those counties must work together to that end without hurting each other, he said, thus assuring a viable solution to the continuing increase in traffic volume and congestion.

“On the south side of Atlanta we have a problem. It’s growth. Unconstrained growth will kill us and we need to get a handle on it,” Dunn said. “ARC is not looking for a nice, pretty study to put on a shelf. We don’t want what’s happening in some communities on the north side to happen here. We’ve got the talent to do this and we can do it right. And we’re going to get it right the first time.”

ARC Comprehensive Plan Division Director Tom Weyandt explained the importance of the study. Identifying five areas designed to create a long-term vision for the southern region, Weyandt said the study should coordinate local plans, corridor studies, Living Centers Initiative studies and ARC regional plans.

The study should reinforce the recommendations of the Mobility 2030 metro transportation plan and help build a consensus on cross-jurisdictional connectivity and accessibility, Weyandt said. The study should encourage complementary growth management policies and identify priorities for updates of the regional transportation plan and regional development plan.

Of critical impact in the study were the identified challenges and problems cited in the south metro region. Those included rapid growth, limited east-west transportation infrastructure, continued congestion, the large reserve of developable land and the wealth of existing local and regional initiatives.

Well-known to all south metro residents is the rapid population growth in recent years. In a striking reversal over the the northside expansion in the decades of the 1980s and 1990s, current and projected population trends in Fayette, Coweta, South Fulton, Clayton, Henry and Spalding counties anticipate massive growth between 2000-2030.

Not coincidental is the reality that, according to ARC figures, 43 percent of all the developable vacant land in the Atlanta region is in the six-county study area.

With that growth will come a large increase in traffic. And with that increase comes a degree of traffic congestion not seen on Southside streets today, said ARC Transportation Division Planner Kofi Wakhisi.

And even Mobility 2030, ARC’s most recent plan addressing current and anticipated regional transportation demands, does not fully allow for enough east-west corridors to accommodate coming needs. Most Atlanta region projects continue to use a radial approach with Atlanta at the center, he said.

The work to be completed in the study is composed of several tasks. With the project installation underway, the inventory and assessment phase is expected to be complete in spring 2006 and the establishment of goals and objectives by summer 2006.

The alternative scenarios task should be completed by late summer or fall with study recommendations coming between December 2006 and February 2007. The final report is expected by March 2007.

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