A proposal to “reimagine North Avenue” may not reimagine it as much as originally thought.
Athens-Clarke County transportation officials are recommending turning the five-lane corridor into a four-lane road over a three-lane option similar to Prince Avenue, but with wider sidewalks and separated bike lanes. The project is funded by a $25 million federal Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) grant the county received in 2022. It was intended to address safety on a wide, fast-moving corridor that is hostile to pedestrians and cyclists and includes a large number of low-income residents without access to personal cars.
The ACC Transportation and Public Works Department received more than 50 in-person comments and 258 online surveys. More than half the respondents live along North Avenue, and their main concern was that it feels unsafe. They wanted ACC to address bike lanes, sidewalks, the homeless population and an aging bridge over the Loop that does not have a sidewalk, creating a barrier to cross over the freeway on foot.
However, TBD also met with institutional stakeholders like UGA, the Athens Downtown Development Authority and the Classic Center who suggested that a three-lane configuration would create traffic jams during major events. The ACC police and fire departments also raised concerns about access for emergency vehicles.
The recommended configuration would include two car lanes going north, a center turn lane and one lane going south. Although traffic is roughly equal in both directions, visitors tend to trickle into town for events, then leave all at once, Rani Katreeb, assistant director of TPW, told commissioners at an Oct. 8 work session. Removing one car lane and slightly narrowing lanes from 12 to 11 feet would reduce speeding and create room for wider sidewalks and either separated bike lanes or a multi-use path on the north side of the street within the existing right of way.
Commissioner Dexter Fisher questioned how many people bike on North Avenue and said he did not want to “sacrifice” car lanes for bikes. Although she is “not against bikes,” Commissioner Ovita Thornton also expressed skepticism about whether people will use the bike lanes.
“What we do see often in other projects I’ve worked on in the past is that when there are no bike facilities, only the bravest or those who have no other option are the ones you see out there today,” consultant Jonathan DeGioria said. “When you provide that path, it becomes a more desirable option.”
The three-lane option “does generally handle traffic pretty well” but could get backed up near the Loop, DeGioria said. It would also slow traffic further and create a shorter crossing for pedestrians. But Jesse Houle was the only commissioner to vocally back the three-lane option.
Separately from the RAISE grant project, the Georgia Department of Transportation was supposed to replace the bridge over the Loop, but last summer moved it down the list of priorities. Instead, local transportation officials now want to repurpose one southbound car lane for a shared bike/pedestrian path. Although traffic is roughly evenly split along most of the corridor, the northbound lanes on the Loop bridge see more than 12,000 cars a day, while the southbound lanes have less than 6,000 due to the way ramps are configured, Katreeb said.
“Everyone [federal, state and local transportation officials] who walked that site around June, summer 2023 was just astonished,” he said. “They were amazed this exists and no one has fixed it.”
Because of tight deadlines associated with the grant, ACC will not be able to replace the locally owned bridge over the North Oconee River, either. It would receive a similar four-lane treatment as the rest of the corridor.
Other improvements the RAISE grant will fund include upgraded traffic signals, crosswalks and bus stops, a landscaped roundabout at one of the Loop interchanges to serve as a “gateway” into the city, and reconfigured on- and off-ramps.
According to the terms of the grant, construction must start by September 2026 and be complete by 2031. However, ACC officials are seeking a waiver on the start date to push it back two years, allowing more time for design.
TSPLOST Won’t Be Special
An advisory group will be appointed soon to select transportation projects for TSPLOST 2026, but it may not have much money to spend once the ACC government sets aside funds for ordinary expenses like transit operations and road maintenance.
County officials presented three options for pre-designated funds from the 1 percent Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax for transportation: $147 million, $115 million or $87 million. The tax—first approved by voters in 2017 and extended in 2022—is expected to raise about $200 million over five years. TSPLOST 2023 was also expected to last five years, but because sales tax revenue is higher than expected, it will expire early.
Everyday items county officials want to fund with TSPLOST 2026 include road paving ($35 million to $66 million), replace live stream pipes ($3 million to $8 million), bridge repairs $2 million to $4 million), neighborhood traffic management (about $1 million), transit operations ($34 million to $45 million), bus replacement ($5 million to $16 million) and a new bus transfer station at the new development that will take the place of Georgia Square Mall ($7 million). The county has a backlog of routine maintenance projects that’s built up over decades, officials said.
“We’ve gravitated toward trying to get a lot of special projects in TSPLOST, but we haven’t funded a lot of the ordinary stuff,” Commissioner Jesse Houle said. “If we don’t fund it with TSPLOST, are we willing to put it in the general fund?”
Commissioner John Culpepper said the commission should be trying to provide relief for property taxpayers, and Commissioner Ovita Thornton agreed.
TSPLOST 2023 also included some funding for routine transportation expenses like replacing traffic signals, but big chunks were devoted to bike and pedestrian projects all over the county—particularly historically neglected areas—that ACC could not otherwise afford.
Commissioner Mike Hamby questioned the inclusion of the Atlanta Highway transfer station. Developer The Leaven Group provided land for the station, among other things, in exchange for ACC devoting future property tax generated by the development to infrastructure on the property through a tax allocation district, or TAD.
“It doesn’t make sense to me, if the [transit] system’s not growing, to build that transfer station,” Hamby said. “…To grow the system, we have to go back and look at the fares.”
Athens Transit buses are currently fare-free, but some have expressed skepticism that bringing back fares will raise much revenue, once the cost of installing new fareboxes and a likely decline in ridership is taken into account.
Acting Manager Niki Jones and Transit Director Victor Pope said a plan for expanded transit service will be coming to the commission in early 2025. It will include doubling frequency on the busiest routes, Pope said. City buses currently run just once an hour on most routes.
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