Appropriations Transportation & Transportation Meeting

Thank you,

to both the house and the senate and the governor's budget the last two years with the state general fund infusion

and amended '20 four of, $1,500,000,000

and $1,000,000,000

last year's amended budget. You can see now that our budget line went above

the national highway construction cost index for the last two, which means we're we didn't lose ground that we actually maybe gained a little bit of ground

on these last two budget years.

But the difference between there on 2020 to about 2023,

where we're below, means we still have more projects,

ready to go than we have budget for. But I just can't say enough about those last two budget years for leadership from the house, senate, and the governor

to put that money in the budget to do what it's gonna do. So let me show you what that money's done.

Again, trying to set the table as we look forward on the on the amended '26 budget. We look back at those amended budgets,

'24 and '25, and this is where the money went.

$98,000,000

went to airport aid.

We always have about three times

more requests than we have funding for airport aid, and so this was a big, big step. About half of that money, though, went to a replacement airport down in Griffin, Spalding County, that if we did not have the money, the Federal Aviation Administration was gonna take back their commitment of funding, which was a big part of that. So we were able to get secure that FAA funding and leverage those state dollars, and also do a tremendous amount of work,

around our local airports across the state.

The local roads funding is that money to cities and counties. That's LMIG lock that most of you are familiar with the LMIG money. We send this money out by formula to cities and counties based on population and road map. Road miles, two fifty million and two sixty five million respectively,

which basically double their LMIG amount. And again, putting it in this budget category called local roads admin,

took away the match component because LMIG has a statutory match component, either 10% if you're in a tier region, which many of you are in, and if you're not in a tier region, it was a 30%. But the local roads admin did not require match. Match. We got that money out very quickly in both years, and

most all that money was used by cities and counties for resurfacing. Again, state of good repair. Their reality has been the same as ours, increased paving cost.

The next, bucket there is the freight program,

which is a big program at 500,000,000

each year,

which was a new program, that was stood up just a couple of budget years ago, coming out of the freight, and logistics plan that we did, which,

came through, Chairman Jasper's committee and basically moved forward to establish a new freight budget program for us. I'm a come back to that one in a moment.

Next is the capital construction.

05/1993

was in amended '24

to address the very thing I just showed you where we're had to cascade projects out into the future because we didn't have money.

In fact, out of that $593,000,000

we were able to advance 44 projects.

25 of those projects, the 44 were ones that were just delayed, that we we they were ready to go. We just needed the money. And in fact, when we did those 25 projects,

from where they were budgeted it, we sped them up by forty project years. So if a project was sitting in two fiscal years out and we moved it in, we call that two project years. So 25 projects

accelerated by forty project years, which is amazing. And we know the longer you wait, the more it costs as well. And we also added 19 project phases that

we know we needed to be working on, but we just didn't have money to get started.

So that's where that money went. Capital maintenance was 50,000,000

in amended '24 to address that resurfacing numbers I was telling you about. It being 51%

more.

So that helped us there. And last and very importantly,

as I was talking about representative Taylor just a minute ago, the 200,000,000

for hurricane Helene

and Debbie cleanup, and the storms we had in Southeast Georgia went into our maintenance budget.

And without that money, we would absolutely have been devastated

in hurricane cleanup. In fact, still, I dealt with, talked to Columbia County just yesterday, or had a request from Columbia County. Still deal we're still dealing with those impacts or those costs that are still out there. And as I told joint appropriations,

so far we've had about $48,000,000

from FEMA reimbursement.

And so, it's with, you know, here we are, a year and

a half or so post that, and still, you know, working on reimbursement. So this money was very, very important. Now that's what you appropriate it, and that's where we're gonna use it. Let me show you how it's been utilized. The maintenance money, we've this is expended. So these are dollars in and actually paid out to contractors.

A 100% of that money's been done.

The capital construction, that 593,

69%

of that outlay has gone out, meaning work has been done. And then the last two categories are the freight, that $500,000,000

in each year. As you can see, those numbers are sort of lagging a little behind, but there's a reason for that.

Again, that was a new budget program, and we're advancing

a lot of projects there that were freight ready. And then several of the big ones on the next slide, or what I call the big three out of that,

are projects that we will bid this calendar year. So these projects will come to bid this calendar year. The first one is I 16, which is roughly $516,000,000,

which is a combination of amended 24 funds and amended 25 funds to widen 31 miles

of I of I 16 from I 95 there down in Savannah,

at least up to the Hyundai meta plant.

Our goal is to do a

variable

a fixed price variable scope contracting. So we say this is how much money we have, and the contractor bids how far they can go. So a very innovative way to try to make sure we maximize

these dollars.

As we all know, I sixteen has tremendous amount of trucks, 23%

trucks in that area.

And we know adding this third lane down there will reduce,

delay by about 56%,

now and in the future. So, again, very important for our economic,

economic opportunity that comes out of the port and everything that's moving that freight moving up I 16.

So that's that's one project. The next one is I 95,

for $74,000,000

to Wide 995 from,

I 16 to South Carolina.

South Carolina is currently under construction to build eight lanes on their side. We have six lanes on the Georgia side. So we're syncing those up again with traffic volumes down there that will continue to expand and grow due to all the freight, commerce that comes out of the port.

And lastly, out of the big three is 135,000,000

to complete the last segment of State Route 96, which is that connection from I 75 to I 16,

South of Macon.

There in Houston and Twiggs County, we have this project ready to bid.

It's,

about nine miles with a major river crossing in there too. So,

those are sort of the big three that consume most of that freight budget, and that's why those numbers were lagging a little further behind. But you can see that this calendar year,

we'll be getting getting that work out the door,

and, seeing those num seeing those dollars used. Now, Mr. Chairman, let me get into the amended '26 budget from the governor's recommendation. And then again, I'm,

super,

excited and very grateful for the governor putting in roughly $2,300,000,000

of additional state general fund money

into the GDOT budget. And so let me walk through sort of the big buckets of where that's going. Starting with a $100,000,000

to address rural bridge replacements.

And so,

we have

literally,

you know,

hundreds of millions, if not more,

of bridge projects that we know we need to do, but we don't have the funding to do. And so this $100,000,000

is gonna be used strategically

to support

ag and timber industry in the rural parts of the state. So we're going through the process now of doing a triage of where are these bridges.

We're trying to make sure they're tied directly to some ag production or some timber

facility production,

that we're replacing bridges strategically. So it's taken us a little bit of time. I know I wished I could give you the list of what that is today, but we're working through that because

we're we're doing several sieves and analysis of saying, okay. What does this one serve? What's this bridge? So this will be a combination of county bridges and state route bridges, but really try to, again,

strategically advance those. And our goal would be that we would deploy these bridges either in this budget year or next budget year to be bid. Not put them all out at one time, but make sure we could be strategic about getting these bridges, a $100,000,000

of strategic bridge investment out over this budget year and next. Next is, was 200,000,000

to the 316 Corridor.

For the last six to seven years,

we've been really focused on trying to improve safety along State Route 316 in Gwinnett, Barrow, and Oconee Counties,

roughly 40 some odd miles, between

Athens and sort of Metro Atlanta there in Gwinnett.

What we've been doing is trying to address

the the safety concerns that exist, I'll get into that, by replacing intersections that

have traffic lots

with either interchanges or overpasses or making some kind of other access improvements

along this very critical corridor. And, our focus at first was where the traffic signals are, because that's where the most congestion is. That's where you have a lot of crashes. And so we've been underway. And on this next slide, you can sort of see

all the intersections from,

left to right, thirty thirty two some odd intersections

along 316, where the traffic really varies greatly from about almost 30,000 vehicles per day up to a 100 and

staggering number here is there's about 1,300

crashes per year

on this on this segment.

In our ten years of data, we went back ten years. So there's there's been 65 fatal crashes on this corridor in the last ten years. If you do that math, that's six and a half per year. That is not where we wanna be. In fact, the crash rates, we look at rates, so that sort of equalizes things around the state.

Six of the intersections are in the top 50 worst offensive intersections for crashes,

and three more are in the top 100. So you got nine out of top 100 worst intersection locations

on this corridor.

And then the other thing we look at is crash severity. So you have a crash, how bad is it? So the most severe crashes, the ones you don't wanna have,

for the intersections are higher than the statewide average, and one is double the statewide average. So you can see the the crash

issue we're dealing with from a safety point of view. The good news is 18 of those intersections are actively being addressed or have been addressed,

but this last $200,000,000

this $200,000,000

will go a long way to continue

sort of the 12 to 13 remaining intersections that we just really didn't have funding for. If you look down at the bottom right for the legend, I know it may be hard to see, you have yet sort of the yellow is intermediate

and long term.

The yellow intermediate means that we may have, like, design underway, but we didn't have construction

funding or right of way. The the black,

is long term, meaning it's just not funded. So you count those up, there's, I think, 12 or 13 of those that this $200,000,000

will absolutely allow us to start addressing. So we end up with a core the entire corridor

that has not only improved safety, but also mobility in a growing area, especially in in the Barrow and Oconee County areas.

Next, out of the state general fund and the governor's budget was the $250,000,000

of local roads administration. Again, that L MIGLOC money.

I can absolutely tell you that I've heard from ACCG and GMA. They're fully supportive of this, cities and counties. And I've had no city or county complain about this money, by the way. So I think you got unanimous consent that everybody likes the cities and counties again. They're they're facing the same realities we face with increased cost. And the other thing is we we get this money out very quickly. We would open we would open the portal as probably as soon as the budget is passed, and then shut it off, right before,

July 1, so that the money is committed in this fiscal year, and the cities and counties can have use use of it immediately.

Alright. Next.

This is a really big one. I shared this same slide at joint appropriations.

These are state general fund money,

that is listed under our budget item payments to Serta. You're gonna hear from Janine Miller, the executive director of Serta in just a little bit, who will provide a lot more detail

about some of the data points on I 75 South Express lanes.

But what I can say about this is this probably been the most popular

budget item,

that I've heard about from many of you and many of my friends,

from the announcement the governor made at eggs and issues. It appears that everyone is really a big fan of this project because I do think it has such statewide impact. It affects everybody. If you live south or north,

it affects you one way or another.

You know, I asked during joint appropriations,

did everybody did anyone ever think the express lanes was going in the wrong direction? And it got a pretty big chuckle.

So I'm assuming that meant yes.

But what I can tell you when the direction that they're going in,

most people criticize us saying those lanes don't look like they should be going the other way. Well, when you open up two more lanes where it's two lanes wide, you add at 67%

more capacity,

which then makes the normal lanes look more empty than they were because that's the benefit of having those two additional lanes. So,

it's amazing to see the difference, and they are always going the wrong direction from you if you're going the direction when they're not open. Correct?

And, oh, by the way, it does take us some time to reverse them. It takes takes a hour to two to go through to make sure there's nobody in them, them, make sure it's safe, and then you have to flip them around. So that's, something we have to deal with. Well, this funding absolutely

does some critical things. It says on the slide, it's gonna one, we're gonna get rid of the directional the,

reversible lanes and make two lanes

barrier separated,

mind you, meaning there's a concrete barrier between you and the other lanes,

the entire the entire 12 miles. That that's found foundationally what this money is gonna do, which gives us the money

to do the design work that we have to do,

to do the right away acquisition that we have to do,

the environmental work that we have to do. This will be a federal environmental document,

and then it's gonna go, to help support the overall construction cost,

which will still need a form of finance, in through SIRDA.

And that form of finance can come in many forms. It can come

forms. It can come through a USDOT TIFIA loan. It could come from toll revenue bonds, but it's going to take more money,

to do this.

And, to get that objective of two lanes in each direction.

Not only that,

chairman Hatchett asked, well, how far will these go? And

I'm I'm not sure I answered appropriately. I said, Dublin's probably a good place, but,

the point is, I think you all know that you get stuck if you're coming north,

you get stuck down in Locust Grove at Bill Gardner Parkway. That's where traffic stops.

And so we know that,

we need to go further south with these express lanes. So this amount of money is what we need as a minimum

to make sure that we can leverage

to do two lanes in each direction,

in the 12 miles. But also, like I I mentioned on I 16,

we'll make it very innovative that we're gonna make sure the money goes as far south as possible

to try to again

because we know you're stopping before you even have the opportunity to get in the express lane.

So, that's gonna be our that's gonna be our,

tact and strategy,

to do that. So,

just again, Janine will have a lot more data points about how the system operates today and sort of the data behind it. And we can, we can talk about that one a little bit more,

after she does her presentations. Now let me just jump into the budget itself. So you've got your track sheet in front of you.

And I but before you get there, if you pull that track sheet up, you're you're gonna see the total,

back on page three of the amended budget.

And so I always like to remind everybody, in the amended budget year, the $71,600,000

increase in excise

comes from the audited collections from last year's,

motor fuel collection. So that gets into our amended budget. So motor fuel is,

is a is,

forecast, but then adjusted in the amended year for the actual audit collections

from Department of Revenue that comes into us. That's why there's no change in transportation trust fund fees or the transit trust fund fees in the minute budget.

Those two budget items look back two years. And what it takes two year look back is what we get appropriated in the year. So those those would be an adjustment next year. And the state general funds, $2,300,000,000

I just highlighted the biggest part of that. But that shows you that brings our total budget to $5,200,000,000

Again, very thankful for that state general fund money.

This table is sort of a summary of what's on your track sheet. We've aggregated a couple of those budget programs together to show you where the funding is actually used. And so I always like to show this chart. Of course, the payments to Serta

is the big one there, 1.8. There's a few other things in payments to Serta beside the 1,796,000,000.000.

Then capital projects. That's capital construction and capital maintenance,

at 1,770,000,000

Then you have our routine maintenance budget. That is that is hey. That's snowing us right now, but,

preparation and response. But that's the taking care of the roadsides. I always say that's the taking care of the house, if you will,

of doing that, including a lot of maintenance contracting. That's our staff, but also

a tremendous amount of maintenance

LMIG and LRA,

combined there.

And then our general operations of the department, which

in this case, we've aggregated

many budget programs together, a lot of department admin, traffic operations,

program delivery administration,

planning, and data collection. So that that sort of runs the department. Altogether, there is some of the traffic operations that do things. We have bond debt. I'll talk about it in a minute. We have our intermodal, which is aviation, rail, waterways,

and,

that's, like, aviation, rail, waterways, transit. So that's that's where that money is, and then payments to the ATL.

So on the next slide, if you wanna get your track sheet, we've just taken your track sheet and put it in table tabular format here for the for the presentation.

Again, I wanna start by saying a big thank you for the governor for recognizing the one time payment of $2,000

for state employees.

We certainly appreciate that. I'm not gonna go line through line on those items, but that totals about $8,600,000

to GDOT across all the budget programs where people are, and that is so appreciated. We really do appreciate that. So let me start at the top of this table, and I'm just gonna highlight a few things.

The geo bond debt, I think it's really important to talk about. The good news is, you can see, that was about a million $1,100,000

reduction in bond debt,

meaning that our debt is reduced,

for geo bond debt. But our total bond debt, or excuse me, our total debt from various kind of bonds is still $1,130,000,000

So we still have a pretty good credit card balance there that we're paying down from previous bond packages. So I just wanna make sure you're aware of that.

Next is capital construction. I'm gonna highlight that one, because again, that's where that's where things get built.

That increased excise number that you saw on the last slide, we put 36,900,000.0

of that into the capital construction.

And then the other plus up was to 200,000,000

in state general fund money, for 03/16.

So that that

increased that $236,000,000

add, that circle.

The next circle there is a capital maintenance, which is line, 47.3,

on your track sheet. In capital maintenance,

there's the $100,000,000

added for the bridge replacements,

rural bridge replacements I talked about.

We'd, asked for your support to actually get that in budget alignment with the capital construction program. So if we could shift that up into capital construction program, that would be in alignment with the budget, requirements

there.

And then, that was the big change there,

where we put that into capital maintenance.

Going down to L MIG,

L MIG is a minimum of 10%

of the excise tax. So with the increased excise motor fuel collections, we made that $7,000,000

adjustment to the L MIG program.

And then, of course, the big circle there is local roads admin that I've already talked about at $250,000,000

If you want to jump on your track sheet over to line 47,

one two,

or so,

then you can see routine maintenance. I wanna talk about that again. Very important,

taking care of the house, as I said.

We increased took some of the excise, 21,800,000.0

of excise. We added into routine maintenance just to deal with the increased cost.

Same those increased costs on construction

go right into maintenance. It's the same materials.

And also to help with some of our equipment, keeping our equipment up to date,

as it ages out. And so that's where that's going.

And plus some money for the 2,000

supplement.

So that that gives us the $26,000,000

add in routine maintenance.

Lastly, circle there is payments to Serta that we talked about as it relates to the I 75 South Express lanes.

So with that, both chairman, thank you for this opportunity. Again, I wanna thank governor Kemp for his continued third year in a row for leadership

of increasing the transportation

investment,

that absolutely

keeps Georgia moving ahead,

trying to keep our stance as the number one state to do business

going on the thirteenth trying to go for the thirteenth year in a row. And this, additional funding absolutely will make lives better for Georgians all across this vast state, not just in Metro Atlanta, but across the entire state. So with that, I'd be glad to entertain any questions.

It's your pleasure. Thank you, commissioner. Very thorough report,

and appreciate you stewarding,

you know, the these resources for the state and keeping us safe on the road.

And, $2,400,000,000

added to your amended budget. That's a lot. Yes, sir. And, most of it looks like it's going to the, express lanes.

And,

we're we're a little bit tight on time, so we're gonna be brief on the questions and just ask you to be available to the committee, you know Yes, sir. Afterwards.

But, if you could just explain, you know, briefly,

the the express lane, the original project, when was that? When was the peach length the, express lanes put in? And,

how does it relate to today's,

this new project? Yeah. So thanks thanks for that question.

It was bid in 2013

and opened in 2018.

Seems like yesterday, but it's been it's been a minute. So,

going on eight years this summer,

being open.

The original cost, was pretty good bargain. It's,

about $216,000,000,

sort of all in.

But I remind you that, what we had then was a median that we basically filled in,

and there was only a couple of over. There was, one interchange overpass,

that was redone and one bridge over I 75 that had to be redone. Everything else

squeezed in. So,

so you go back to those numbers and you say, wow. Why can't we why can't we do it for that cost? Well,

I look back at the that national highway construction cost index nationally,

and,

over that time from twenty thirteen to twenty twenty four, there was a a 111%

increase

in construction cost.

Now if you multiply that out, it's still south of the total dollar amount, but these are two very different projects of what we are trying to eventually accomplish.

Again, where that we've already filled up the median, that means we're gonna have to go to the outside, buy a right of way,

you know, do more construction. And then I'll remind you too, the south end of that project is only one lane,

and it's squeezed in the middle, and it's only one lane wide. So we're gonna have to do be very innovative, which means probably more bridges, more aerial to limit right away impact on a very constrained corridor.

You get into more bridges, high level kind of things, fly bridges that fly over and back into the middle. So our goal is, again,

to use the existing right of way and real estate we have, and there's some wide areas there at Eagle Eagles Landing, Hudson Bridge,

down,

sort of on the South Side. There's some there's some or, excuse me, on the northern side, there's some wide right away that we absolutely use, but there's a lot that will just be re total interstate reconstruction would be a very complex. And and if I understand right, the one point roughly 1,800,000,000.0

added to the amended budget is just getting you started.

There will be more money borrowed

and that debt will be serviced through the fees, correct? That's correct.

Okay. Trevor Jaspers, do you have anything for the commissioner? You

know,

I know you're y'all got your guys are are very available to us. I know a lot of members are getting texted questions.

One that comes up the most, commissioner, is

on

it's

what we all in here

see every day. We get the complaints about. And I guess,

what is the pent up demand? I know that we check our roads every other year.

We know the great and,

you know, got increased money for paving. But I think

members want to know what's the demand. Because, you know, I would I'm always trying to ask for more money,

and sometimes don't have real accurate numbers. But I'd sure like to know what's the demand. I don't know if you can answer that right now. -Yeah. Let me give you sort of just a ballpark answer there is I'll go back to that data point of resurfacing's increased by 51%

over the last four years.

So we we got I think you'd agree that most of our conditions are pretty good. We've we've sorted we have we have key performance indicators for all our roads,

and we're we're almost hitting some of the targets. Some of the targets we're right on. So we're we're sort of close to where we need state of good repair

in a system, but that we got there

several years ago. So if you've got fifth if your money's going half as far,

that's gonna tell you that's about what we need. So on average, we're somewhere around $3.70

to $400,000,000

a year to resurface state routes and interstates.

The so the other concern, though, is our interstates. I like to say all of them are, have a knee replacement, a hip replacement, and are and are eligible for Social Security.

A lot of the original interstate pavement has lived its its life, and we're having to spend significant amount of money.

Just as a word of warning, we are rebuilding I I 285 from the airport on the West Side up to Cobb County up through Cobb County

this summer. So don't go don't go over there. Alright.

Stay away. Yep.

And and but the point the point is it's that pavement is worn out. We're having to rebuild it. But I think the I think the anecdotal answer is pretty easy. 51%

cost increase. We were pretty good on our state of good repair, sort of where we are, but that means you about need to double the budget. Right? I mean, so you need you need that, you know. Where we are at 375 or 400, you probably need to be, like, you know, 800,000,000

a year. Thank you. Commissioner, appreciate you. And members,

I'm sorry. We're just short on time. So I'm gonna,

ask, director of planning Janine Miller to come up and, give us her presentation.

And and probably just hit the highlights so we can make best use of this last ten minutes.

Yes, sir.

I've got a lot of data points, but I will go through them quickly.

Good morning. It is great to be with you all here today. Thank you for

your time,

and your attention to transportation,

which,

we know is the

arteries of our economy, of our communities,

and our families.

Quickly,

the SIRTA budget,

the 2026

budget included

money for the infrastructure bank as it does every year through the Transportation Trust Fund.

We are, excited to have,

reported that we have awarded all of those dollars to 13 projects around the

Northwest

Corner,

Cherokee, and Cumberland CID around,

Truist Ballpark to support movement there around that economic center, all the way down to

Seminole County,

and Iron City there, as well as Twin City and Emmanuel County, and up and over to Athens, Clark County. So we have been able to award 13 projects around the state, thanks to your investment

there. We also have our current round is open.

So there is a card on your desk,

with a QR code there for your local communities to apply for those dollars,

through February 13. So we'd love to get more applications,

from around the state again this year.

As the commissioner said, I'm going to talk about the I-seventy 5 South quarter, but I always have to start with, in transportation,

our logistics enabled,

businesses.

Since Governor Kemp took office, there have been $113,000,000,000

of in announcements

in of private investment throughout the state,

and 88%

of those announcements

have been in logistics

enabled companies. In other words, there's a requirement for inbound cargo for the company to

operate and employ Georgians, and outbound goods to market,

and consumers.

74,000,000,000

or 65%

of the total dollar amount, that is, over the past

six, seven years,

has gone towards logistics enabled businesses, employing

over time as these, projects roll out, 157,000

jobs throughout the state. So this is a critical,

a critical industry for for the state of Georgia that relies on our transportation

system

all day, every day.

I wanna talk about congestion in Metro Atlanta. I think you all have probably felt it,

if not on your way to and from the capital here, but but throughout the year. In fact, last year, the most recent publication of a,

a company called INRIX,

this is a world renowned data

analytics company with for transportation,

ranked Georgia as number seventh in the country for worse trans worse,

traffic and delay.

That is sixteenth in the world is Atlanta.

That's incredible. That's a 23%

increase in the hours lost to traffic in the past two years,

the third most increase in The US. And the other state the other metro areas that had worse traffic growth than Atlanta were Baltimore and Philadelphia,

and those were for one time events. You may recall that the unfortunate,

bridge collapse in in Baltimore

caused a great deal of congestion there, as well as there were, issues with the Philadelphia transit system,

safety significant safety issues that shut that down. Were it not for those very unique one time events, Atlanta would have had the worst traffic growth

in the country since 2023.

Last year,

people sitting in Atlanta traffic lost seventy five hours. That's 50% higher than The US average.

And what does that look like on our roadways?

In the on the left is red to green. Since 2019,

we have had, basically, the population of the city of Newark, New Jersey moved to Metro Atlanta,

and the roads got worse.

Some of them got better. They're in green on the left, but all the rest of them got worse. On the right, you can see the degree to which they got worse. And this corridor, I-sixty 5 in the South Metro Area,

the lifeline

to Northern Georgia,

through Metro Atlanta,

had the worst traffic. And this is midday. This is middle of the day. This is not rush hour.

And these, are the times, as the commissioner mentioned, when we are reversing the direction of the lane.

Express lanes are a choice, great choice for Metro Atlanta's or anyone traveling through Georgia.

Since 2011, when we opened the I-eighty 5 Corridor, we have had,

significant growth.

In fact, in the last two years, since we've gotten that those, really bad traffic numbers

and data, we've had a 12.6%

increase in the use of our express lanes. That's system wide. A little zoom in here on the I-seventy 5 South Corridor, 5,000,000 trips.

We've had an 84%

growth in trip since fiscal 'eighteen when it opened. It is currently 12 miles long, although as the commissioner said, it's,

only two miles, for,

portions of it, and one lane in each direction for a couple of miles in the south.

This is what it looks like to

the,

average traveler who's doing a Google Maps search, How long is it going to take me to get through the corridor?

In the morning, northbound, the lane is going in the northbound direction.

And using the toll lane, it would take ten to sixteen minutes to get through there.

80%

increase, though, if you're trying to get through that corridor in the afternoon. And you you might say, well, ten minutes is not that big of a deal. Well, actually, that lane provides a would have would provide a 21 mile an hour increase in speed

through that corridor

if that lane were going in the northbound direction.

And you multiply this. This might just be what you see on your phone,

for your trip, but you multiply this by the number of people every day who cannot get into the lane.

Average about a 100,000 people every day who cannot get into the express lane.

So we have,

have something in,

in transportation analytics. This is how it looks to us as transportation professionals professionals.

A road report card. Levels of service. It's it's an A, B, or C. You're doing well. If you're an F, you are failing.

And this, these general purpose lanes are failing Metro Atlanta,

travelers.

And by 2050

this is all day. Do you see that red?

All day long. This is an all day model. There is not a way to get through this corridor at any hour of the day in 2050,

with, with any ease or speed.

That is all we can predict,

but, of course, we cannot predict crashes.

So

compound onto those data points,

the growth in traffic and the delay.

What is caused

by the slowdowns that are caused by unpredictable

crashes

is is quite severe throughout this corridor, particularly on the northern side. So there is no way to get around these crashes when the lane is going in the other direction.

By the numbers, this is the real data. K? This is the roll up of our most recent month of data we were able to to gather in December 2025, time and money lost,

by the numbers. A 193,000

average vehicles per day.

That is 334,000

every person

lost nine point three hours that month

to traffic on that corridor.

And so you have to budget 80% additional more time to get through that corridor

on schedule,

and the cost to the economy is real. 15 and a half million dollars is the cost of that unreliability.

But what's very interesting is where those,

cars and trucks are coming from and going to. The darker the gray,

the the more trips originate

and depend on that corridor there in the center of the state

to get through. So it's not just the express lane, it's all of general purpose lanes that are dealing with this traffic. And,

once we have a lane going in both directions, there will be 70%

more vehicles that can pass through this corridor.

And I say vehicles, it's not just cars.

18 to 20%

of the vehicles getting through this corridor,

attempting to get through this corridor, are trucks.

They carry $2.06

$20,000,000

a day

of freight value.

In a year, that's $226,000,000,000.

That is a roughly 25%

of the value of freight moving in Georgia goes through this corridor and sits in that traffic.

This corridor has also been named by the American Trucking Associations

as the worst

freight corridor bottleneck in the country. It's number 12.

One through 11 are all interchanges.

This is the number one worst corridor in the country for trucks.

Director,

we're getting some looks on time, you know, at the back door, and,

and rules chairman has has come in. And so we're gonna clear this room. But thank you Thank you. For that quick presentation. And we may we may ask you back,

to either this committee or chairman Jasper's to Thank you. So we can have time to ask you some questions. Thank you. Alright. Thank you. Hey, members, if you would take your packets with you when you go to to make it easier for rules to come in and occupy the room. Appreciate you. We're adjourned.

There you go. That's how you do that. Alright. Yep.