Co. commission to consider new perimeter bypass plan for Waycross
Commissioners are slated to vote on a resolution to endorse a new perimeter road that would encircle Waycross.
“We have it on our agenda for Tuesday night’s meeting (held after The Times deadline,” said County Manager Raphel Maddox.
Maddox, Chairman Neal Bennett, First District Commissioner Troy Mattox, Fourth District Commissioner David Lowman, County Clerk Donna Golding and representatives from Pierce, Ware and Brantley Counties met last week in Ware County to discuss resurrecting the old east bypass project, which was officially declared dead 10 years ago.
A feasibility study expanded the project to a perimeter road that would encircle Waycross. The new proposed perimeter road would relieve congestion through the city by providing an alternate route for big trucks.
The perimeter road would run through all three counties and would be built in phases.
Maddox stressed the proposal is just that — a proposal — and there would be changes before plans are finalized.
The east bypass route would begin at Lairsey Crossing and would utilize Midway Church Road and then include a new roadway and bridges across the Satilla River, crossing in to extreme Western Brantley County and coming out on U.S. Highway 82 near Woodard Chapel Church. The road would continue and link up with U.S. 1 near Aycock Road.
A west bypass road would utilize Hacklebarney and Cason Road and skirt Yellow Bluff with a new bridge across the river to Jamestown and then cross the U.S. 1 bypass and U.S. 1 main route west of the airport.
Southern portions of the bypass would encircle Waycross from U.S. 84 and Highway 1 including new roadway below Rice Yard and the Eight Mile Post Road.
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.S. Highway 1.
The project would have included the construction of bridges across the Satilla River and the railroad lines paralleling U.S. Highways 82 and 84.
The original proposal did not include any part in Brantley County.
The project was killed 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, would 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 still come up from time to time.
No new overpasses have been built in Waycross in the decade since the east bypass was canceled and the congestion problem there has only gotten worse according to feedback by public officials and citizens that was included in the feasibility study.
The map shows a proposed perimeter road that would encircle Waycross and would include portions of Pierce County.
