BLACKSHEAR — Could the Waycross East Bypass project be resurrected? The Pierce County Commission is slated to meet with its Ware County and Brantley County counterparts in Ware County later this month to discuss reviving the project, which was officially declared dead 10 years ago.
A tri-county meeting is scheduled for 10 a.m., Thursday, October 30 at the Ware County Administration Building, 305 Oak Street.
The idea of resurrecting the project is just that — a proposal — but local leaders appear to be looking to study the feasibility of an east bypass that would run through all three counties. First discussed in 2002, the project entered the planning and design stage in 2005, and in 2012 was presented to the public during a hearing in Ware County. The project proposed at that time called for a $65 million bypass to include 5.5 miles of two-lane highway starting at approximately Farr’s Fine Furniture in Pierce County and extending to U.S. Highway 82. A four-lane section would connect U.S 82 to U.S. Highway 1.
The lanes would pass around Waycross to the east and end near the Walker-Jones Auto Dealerships on U
The lanes would pass around Waycross to the east and end near the Walker-Jones Auto Dealerships on U.S. Highway 1.
The project would have included the construction of bridges across the Satilla River and the railroad lines parallelling both U.S. 82 and 84.
The original proposal did not include any part in Brantley County.
The project was shelved in the face of 62 percent public opposition to the proposal shortly before Christmas, 2015.
Pierce County citizens and governments expressed support for the project, while Ware County residents opposed it, largely due to concerns it would disrupt east side neighborhoods, bypass downtown Waycross and did nothing to address the need for railroad overpasses in Waycross that block major intersections.
Although the project was canceled, the topic of a bypass to handle truck traffic and congestion has resurfaced from time to time.
No new overpasses have been built in Waycross in the decade since the east bypass was canceled.
