Just months later, the DOT returned to the commission for a whopping $207.7 million to acquire right of way as well as money for construction. At the time, DOT officials were projecting that the first segment of the Arc would be open to traffic in 2006.
Commission staff persuaded DOT officials to withdraw their construction funding request, but the right-of-way acquisition request is already the top topic at public hearings now under way around the region.
Homeowners unite|
A recent weekend meeting of homeowners in Forsyth County, called by a group that discovered its upscale subdivisions lie directly in the Arc's path, drew more than 700 people to a middle school auditorium. Two congressmen, Reps. Bob Barr (R-Ga.) and John Linder (R-Ga.), as well as state legislators also came to talk about the Arc.
"If you surveyed the people out here, we would vote it down, hands down," said Jeff Anderson, an Ernst & Young health care consultant who is working with the Forsyth County Northern Arc Task Force. "There are 90,000 residents here [in Forsyth], and we are very upset."
Last week, the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners took its stand, voting 4-1 for a resolution opposing the Northern Arc. The Cherokee County Board of Commissioners voted 3-2 in favor of the Arc in December.
The Roswell City Council is on record opposing the Arc. Roswell Mayor Jere Wood has been an ardent adversary of the road, arguing that the $2.4 billion could be better spent on local road improvements that would have a more immediate effect on traffic flow.
Cherokee Commissioner J.J. Biello said he once opposed the Northern Arc but changed his mind as the county began to convert from an agrarian settlement to a suburban bedroom community.
"It's imperative to the county's ability to attract industry and jobs," Biello said.
Gridlock threatens to hobble development efforts and creates obstacles to commerce that range from delayed deliveries to missed appointments.
"You can't maintain quality of life without giving some relief from traffic congestion. It's hard to imagine not building some new road capacity," said Gwinnett County Chamber of Commerce President Richard Tucker, also a member of the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority board. "You have to provide capacity. Regardless of what the environmental extremists say, the single-occupancy vehicle is still a transportation option."
Concerns about the Arc's effect on metro Atlanta are also emerging far south of the counties it will actually pass through. These concerns have more to do with fears that the Arc will not only take existing traffic from other roads but will generate its own traffic from new subdivisions and office parks springing up along its path.
Some worry that this would not only increase Atlanta's air and water pollution woes, but it also would continue a northward drift that will leave the city and its southern suburbs economically abandoned.
The South Fulton Chamber of Commerce approved a resolution opposing the Arc last year. According to the resolution, the road will perpetuate unhealthy development patterns on the city's Northside and widen the existing north-south investment gulf.
The Atlanta City Council also approved a resolution in November opposing the Northern Arc. New Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin said through a spokesman she has been too preoccupied with the city's budget woes to frame a personal position.
A spokesman for Fulton County Commission Chairman Mike Kenn said the chairman is "generally supportive" of the road, but "he believes that there are numerous other traffic needs [like the arterial streets in Fulton County] that should be a much higher priority."
Franklin, Kenn and DeKalb Chief Executive Vernon Jones are members of the ARC and will vote on funding for the Northern Arc in September.
Tucker's GRTA board colleague, Georgia Conservancy President John Sibley, has made halting construction of the Northern Arc his top priority for 2002. "This is not about just another big road," Sibley said.
CTD............
---max
Seems Ed can read the writing on the wall.