The Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) is the organization in charge of developing and maintaining all state and federal roadways in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the South Caucasus * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the southeastern United States Georgia may also refer to: People and fictional characters * Georgia (name), a list of pe ...

. In addition to

highway A highway is any public or private road or other public way on land. It includes not just major roads, but also other public roads and rights of way. In the United States, it is also used as an equivalent term to controlled-access highway, or ...

s, the department also has a limited role in developing

public transportation Public transport (also known as public transit, mass transit, or simply transit) are forms of transport available to the general public. It typically uses a fixed schedule, route and charges a fixed fare. There is no rigid definition of whi ...

and

general aviation General aviation (GA) is defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as all civil aviation aircraft operations except for commercial air transport or aerial work, which is defined as specialized aviation services for other ...

programs. GDOT is

headquarter Headquarters (often referred to as HQ) notes the location where most or all of the important functions of an organization are coordinated. The term is used in a wide variety of situations, including private sector corporations, non-profits, mil ...

ed in

downtown Atlanta Downtown Atlanta is the central business district of Atlanta, Georgia, United States. The largest of the city's three commercial districts (Midtown Atlanta, Midtown and Buckhead being the others), it is the location of many corporate and region ...

and is part of the

executive branch The executive branch is the part of government which executes or enforces the law. Function The scope of executive power varies greatly depending on the political context in which it emerges, and it can change over time in a given country. In ...

state government A state government is the government that controls a subdivision of a country in a federal form of government, which shares political power with the federal or national government. A state government may have some level of political autonom ...

. GDOT has broken up the state of Georgia into seven districts in order to facilitate regional development. Each district is responsible for the planning, design, construction, and maintenance of the state and federal highways in their region.

History

The State Highway Department was created on August 16, 1916 by an act of the Georgia General Assembly. In 1918 came the creation of the Georgia State Highway Commission, which made surveys and oversaw plans for road projects. Finally, in 1972, came the creation of the Georgia Department of Transportation by Governor

Jimmy Carter James Earl Carter Jr. (October 1, 1924December 29, 2024) was an American politician and humanitarian who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party ...

Roles and responsibilities

The Georgia Department of Transportation plans, constructs, maintains, and improves the state's road and bridges; provides planning and financial support for other modes of transportation such as mass transit and airports; provides airport and air safety planning; and provides air travel to state departments. The department also provides administrative support to the State Road and Tollway Authority and the

Georgia Rail Passenger Authority The Georgia Rail Passenger Program (GRPP) was a set of plans, as yet unbuilt, for intercity and commuter rail in the U.S. state of Georgia. Commuter Routes Seven commuter routes were proposed to serve the Atlanta suburbs and nearby cities. Athen ...

. A majority of the department's resources are directed toward maintaining and improving the state's network of roads and bridges. Proceeds from the state's motor fuel taxes are constitutionally earmarked solely for use on Georgia's roads and bridges. Non-road and bridge construction projects are supported by a combination of state general funds, federal funds, and local funds. The department is responsible for waterways, including the Intracoastal Waterway and the

Savannah A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) biome and ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach th ...

and Brunswick ports.

Commissioners

* Jim L. Gillis Sr. (1963-1970) *

Bert Lance Thomas Bertram "Bert" Lance (June 3, 1931 – August 15, 2013) was an American businessman who served as director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Jimmy Carter in 1977. He is known mainly for resigning from the Carter admini ...

(1970-1973) * Downing Musgrove (1973-1975) *

Tom Moreland Thomas D. Moreland (born July 12, 1933July 24, 2023), for whom the Tom Moreland Interchange is named, was one of the United States's leading road building experts, and served as President of Moreland Altobelli Associates, Inc., since its incep ...

(1975-1987) * Hal Rives (1987-1991) * Wayne Shackleford (1991-2000) * J. Tom Coleman Jr. (2000-2003) * Harold E. Linnenkohl (2003-2007) * Gena Lester Abraham Evans (2007-2009) * Vance C. Smith Jr. (2009-2011) * Keith Golden (2011-2015) * Russell R. McMurry (2015–present)

Ground transportation

Highway system

The state of Georgia has of

Interstate highways The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, commonly known as the Interstate Highway System, or the Eisenhower Interstate System, is a network of controlled-access highways that forms part of the National H ...

within its state lines. Georgia's major Interstate Highways are

I-95 Interstate 95 (I-95) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the East Coast of the United States, running from U.S. Route 1 (US 1) in Miami, Florida, north to the Houlton–Woodstock Border Crossing between Maine and the ...

I-75 Interstate 75 (I-75) is a major north–south Interstate Highway System, Interstate Highway in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes and Southeastern United States, Southeastern regions of the United States. As with most Interstates that end ...

, I-16,

I-85 Interstate 85 (I-85) is a major Interstate Highway in the Southeastern United States. Its southern terminus is at an interchange with I-65 in Montgomery, Alabama; its northern terminus is an interchange with I-95 in Petersburg, Virginia, n ...

, and

I-20 I20, I 20 or I-20 may refer to: * Interstate 20, a highway in the southeastern United States * I-20 (form), a United States government document that provides supporting information for the issuance of a student visa or change of status * I-20 (rap ...

. Other important interstate highways are

I-24 Interstate 24 (I-24) is an Interstate Highway in the Midwestern and Southeastern United States. It runs diagonally from I-57, south of Marion, Illinois, to Chattanooga, Tennessee, at I-75. It travels through Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee ...

and I-59. I-285 is

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...

's perimeter route and I-575 connects with counties in

north Georgia North Georgia is the northern hilly/mountainous region in the U.S. state of Georgia. At the time of the arrival of settlers from Europe, it was inhabited largely by the Cherokee. The counties of north Georgia were often scenes of important eve ...

on I-75 and

I-675 Interstate 675 may refer to: * Interstate 675 (Georgia), a connection south of Atlanta, Georgia * Interstate 675 (Michigan), a loop through Saginaw, Michigan *Interstate 675 (Ohio) Interstate 675 (I-675) is an auxiliary Interstate Highway i ...

connects to I-285 on the south side of Atlanta.

I-475 Interstate 475 may refer to: * Interstate 475 (Georgia), a bypass of Macon, Georgia * Interstate 475 (Michigan) Interstate 475 (I-475) is a north–south List of auxiliary Interstate Highways, auxiliary Interstate Highway in the US state o ...

is a western bypass of Macon, shortening the trip for through I-75 traffic. The Georgia Department of Transportation maintains only 16 percent of the roads in the state. The other 84 percent are the responsibility of the counties and cities; 75 percent of those roads are

county road A county highway (also county road or county route; usually abbreviated CH or CR) is a road in the United States and in the Canadian province of Ontario that is designated and/or maintained by the county highway department. Route numbering can ...

s. GDOT maintains approximately 18,000 miles of state routes and has maintained this mileage cap since the early 1970s. This has led to a significant shift of road responsibility from state responsibility to local governments. This is because the state highway system has not been allowed to grow in proportion to the massive overall road system growth due to rapid population increases statewide over the past 40 years. This has left many urbanized counties forced to maintain many miles of arterial routes and a few freeways due to inability to get these roads onto the state highway system.

Freeing the Freeways

The Freeing the Freeways program was the largest urban expressway reconstruction project of the late 20th century. The program involved widening the all the interstate highways within the beltway of

. The Federal Highway Act of 1976 allowed states for the first time to use federal highway dollars to widen and build new interchanges on existing highways. This change to federal policy and subsequent similar changes in the 1978 Surface Transportation Assistance Act and 1981 Federal-Aid Highway Act allowed Georgia to rebuild metro Atlanta interstates with 90/10 federal support. The project cost $1.5 billion and doubled Atlanta's freeway lane miles from . The project sought to increase lanes from six to eight on

, I-75,

, and I-285 and 10 lanes on the downtown connector involved and was phased over 13 years between 1976 and 1988. During this time, auxiliary interstates in the

Atlanta metropolitan area Metro Atlanta, designated by the United States Office of Management and Budget as the Atlanta–Sandy Springs–Roswell metropolitan statistical area, is the most populous metropolitan statistical area in the U.S. state of Georgia and the sixt ...

would be constructed and open including

Interstate 575 Interstate 575 (I-575) is an auxiliary Interstate Highway in the United States, which branches off I-75 in Kennesaw and connects the Atlanta metropolitan area with the North Georgia mountains, extending . I-575 is also the unsigned State ...

(construction began in 1979 and was completed in 1985) and Interstate 675 (construction began in 1982 and was completed in 1987). Widening of I-285 took place first, in order to allow drivers to bypass the construction when it took place within the beltway. Construction began on the northern arc of I-285 from Paces Ferry Road just west of I-75 to Chamblee Tucker Road just east of I-85 in 1976, and it was completed by 1978. The radiating expressways were then upgraded. By July 1985, I-75 and I-85 had both been widened from the Brookwood Split to north to their interchanges with I-285. The only section of major interstates that was not rebuilt in the project was I-85 between the Brookwood Split to present-day

Georgia 400 State Route 400 (SR 400; commonly known as Georgia 400) is a freeway and state highway in the U.S. state of Georgia serving parts of Metro Atlanta. It is concurrent with U.S. Route 19 (US 19) from exit 4 ( Inters ...

. The Georgia Department of Transportation opted to build a new viaduct carrying the new 10-lane I-85 just north of the original I-85 alignment and downgraded the original alignment to

Georgia State Route 13 State Route 13 (SR 13) is a state highway (US), state highway in the north-central part of the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia, that travels through portions of Fulton County, Georgia, Fulton, DeKalb County, Georgia, DeK ...

. The construction of the

Tom Moreland Interchange Tom Moreland Interchange, colloquially known as '' Spaghetti Junction'', is the interchange of Interstate 85 (I-85) and I-285, along with several access roads, in northern DeKalb County, Georgia, northeast of Atlanta and just to the south of No ...

, replacing the

cloverleaf interchange A cloverleaf interchange is a two-level interchange (road), interchange in which all turns are handled by slip roads. To go left (in right-hand traffic; reverse directions in left-driving regions), vehicles first continue as one road passe ...

at the junction of Interstate 85 and Interstate 285 on the northeast side of Atlanta, began in 1983. The first flyover ramp opened in 1985 and the interchange was completed in 1987. The other intersection of I-285 and I-85 on the southwest corner of Atlanta was originally constructed as a concurrency in the 1960s. When completed in 1989, the newly widened I-285 and I-85 had separate parallel roadways. The final phases of construction were on the Downtown Connector. Work on the Connector began in 1984. The project widened the Connector to 10 lanes, which included the design and construction of 55 bridges over the connector. GDOT policy mandated that there were never fewer lanes open during construction as existed before construction which added to the cost and time devoted to the Downtown section. The final segment of the Downtown Connector opened in November 1988. While not officially part of Freeing the Freeways, over the next few years into the early 1990s, several of the suburban interstates would be widened including I-75 in Cobb County from Windy Hill Road to I-575 and I-85 in Gwinnett County from I-285 to SR 316. I-285's northern arc would get another lane in each direction. All these projects contributed to Atlanta having world class infrastructure and being selected to host the

1996 Summer Olympics The 1996 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXVI Olympiad, also known as Atlanta 1996 and commonly referred to as the Centennial Olympic Games) were an international multi-sport event held from July 19 to August 4, 1996, in Atlanta, ...

. I-75 and I-85 (as well as their

Downtown Connector In Downtown Atlanta, the Downtown Connector or 75/85 (pronounced "seventy-five eighty-five") is the concurrent section of Interstate 75 and Interstate 85 through the core of the city. Beginning at the I-85/ Langford Parkway interchang ...

concurrency) were built with provisions for

high-occupancy vehicle lane A high-occupancy vehicle lane (also known as an HOV lane, carpool lane, diamond lane, 2+ lane, and transit lane or T2 or T3 lanes) is a restricted traffic lane reserved for the exclusive use of vehicles with a driver and at least one passenger, ...

s (HOV lanes) including dedicated exits and on-ramps at Northside Drive, Lindbergh Drive, Williams Street, Piedmont Avenue, Memorial Drive, and Aviation Boulevard. In 1989, the Georgia Department of Transportation estimated it would cost just under $430,000 to convert a lane in each direction for 21.3 miles of I-85 to HOV lanes. The first HOV lanes to open were on

from the Connector east to I-285. In June 1996, in anticipation of the

, HOV lanes opened on I-75 and I-85 from Aviation Boulevard on I-75 north to the

Chattahoochee River The Chattahoochee River () is a river in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern United States. It forms the southern half of the Alabama and Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia border, as well as a portion of the Florida and Georgia border. It ...

and I-85 from the Connector north to I-285. This marked the true end of Freeing the Freeways as all the urban and suburban widening projects were complete and the HOV lanes initially built in the late 1980s were finally opened and operating.

Railroads

Georgia boasts one of the most extensive freight rail systems in the U.S., with some 5,000 miles of track that run through almost all of the state's 159 counties. The system primarily consists of two Class 1 railroads—

Norfolk Southern The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States. Headquartered in Atlanta, the company was formed in 1982 with the merger of the Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. The comp ...

and

CSX CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Railroad classes, Class I freight railroad company operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Operating about 21,000 route miles () of trac ...

—and 25 shortlines. 29 percent (1,433 miles) of the state's railroad system is operated by 25 independent or short-line operators.

Light density lines

The DOT owns nearly 540 miles of light density rail line. Approximately 90 percent of the 540 miles is leased to a shortline operator. The remaining 10 percent is leased to the

Georgia Department of Natural Resources The Georgia Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is an administrative agency of the U.S. state of Georgia. Structure The agency has statewide responsibilities for managing and conserving Georgia’s natural, cultural, and historical resource ...

for use as a bicycle and pedestrian trail, is inactive, or is not leased. Norfolk Southern has approximately 851 miles of light density lines and CSX has another 242 miles. Georgia's light density lines carry less than 5 million gross tons of freight per year and function as local shortline service operators, primarily in rural agricultural areas.

Mainlines

2,463 miles of the

rail system Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

are classified as "mainline track". Some Georgia mainlines transport more than 80 million gross tons per year, ranking them among the most heavily used in the country.

Air transportation

Aviation Programs

Aviation Programs is tasked to assure a safe, adequate, and well-maintained system of public-use airports, to promote and encourage the use of aviation facilities, to guide airport development, to promote viable scheduled air service throughout the state, and to foster safer operating conditions at these facilities.

Other responsibilities

Aviation Programs is responsible for inspecting and licensing all open-to-the-public general aviation airports in the state. State law requires public-use airports to have a state airport license. Licensing occurs on a biennial basis. Aviation Programs also publishes and distributes to the airports and aviation community the Georgia Airport Directory and the Georgia Aeronautical Chart in alternating years.

State Block Grant Program

Georgia was designated by the FAA as the 10th participant in the State Block Grant Program beginning October 1, 2008. This mandates the department to accept and administer millions of dollars in federal funding for improvements at federally eligible general aviation airports. Aviation Programs assumes additional responsibility for project oversight, airport planning, compliance, and environmental review at these airports.

Airport Development

The Airport Development program is responsible for developing, managing, and administering programs to satisfy these goals. The Georgia Airport Aid Program is designed to provide financial assistance to communities in accomplishing capital improvement, airfield maintenance, and approach aid projects. Capital improvement projects include new, extension or widening of a runway,

taxiway A taxiway is a path for aircraft at an airport connecting runways with Airport apron, aprons, hangars, Airport terminal, terminals and other facilities. They mostly have a hard surface such as Asphalt concrete, asphalt or concrete, although sma ...

, or aircraft parking apron. Maintenance projects include resurfacing or reconstruction of runways, taxiways, and aprons, repair of lighting systems and approach aids, and sealing of joints and cracks on airfield pavements. Approach aid projects include the purchase and installation of glide slopes, localizers, visual guidance, and automated weather reporting equipment.

Aviation Planning

The Aviation Planning program participates in individual airport planning projects, and, on a statewide basis, maintain the Georgia Aviation System Plan, which reviews the state system of airports and make recommendations on their development that would benefit statewide development goals. We routinely maintain a statewide Airfield Pavement Management Study which evaluates the pavement at 103 airports in the state. Recommendations include a 5-year maintenance work program for each airport and documentation of the needs for state funds to maintain the airport infrastructure.

Department management

Georgia DOT is governed by a 14-member State Transportation Board that is elected by the

Georgia General Assembly The Georgia General Assembly is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is bicameral, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. Each of the General Assembly's 236 members serve two-year terms and are directl ...

for a five-year term and is headed by a commissioner chosen from among the board members. The board's powers include designating which public roads are encompassed within the state highway system; approving long-range transportation plans; overseeing the administration of construction contracts; and authorizing lease agreements. Offices within the board, other than Commissioner, are Deputy Commissioner; Chief Engineer and Treasurer. The Georgia Department of Transportation has several different divisions. They include: *Division of Administration *Chief Engineer *Communications Division *Division of Construction *Division of Equal Employment Opportunity *Division of Field Districts *Division of Information Technology *Division Legal Services *Division of Operations *Division of Planning *Division of Preconstruction *Special Staff *Treasurer

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Georgia Department Of Transportation Transportation in Georgia (U.S. state) State departments of transportation of the United States

Transportation Transport (in British English) or transportation (in American English) is the intentional Motion, movement of humans, animals, and cargo, goods from one location to another. Mode of transport, Modes of transport include aviation, air, land tr ...

1972 establishments in Georgia (U.S. state) Government agencies established in 1972