The local organization tasked with looking at current transportation issues, while planning for the future, is seeking public input for an update on moving freight.
The Augusta Regional Transportation Study (ARTS) Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) is in the process of updating the Regional Freight Plan. It will be the first update since 2008.
The ARTS MPO works within the Augusta Planning and Development Department to address transportation across Richmond and Columbia counties in Georgia and Aiken and Edgefield counties in South Carolina. It is more than 800 square miles with a population approaching 500,000, according to the 2020 US Census.
Vincent Matheney, Sr. Transportation Planner, Managing Officer with Metro Analytics, and the consultant on the plan update, told ABD there are three phases to creating the plan.
“The first phase is really a discovery phase, where we go through, and we collect as much data as we possibly can. We take a hard look at the area as a whole and really understand the freight network, the community that we’re working in,” he explained. “The second phase is typically project identification and evaluation. What are those projects that are really going to help address the gaps and issues that we found during the discovery phase.”
He said the third phase, the final report and work program, is the most important step in the process.
“The work program has the projects that have been evaluated that we feel and recommend will be the most the best bang for your buck, as far as addressing those issues and making sure that that the network itself is functioning in the best way it can.”
Since the last plan in 2008, the area has seen tremendous growth, in both population and commercial businesses, including the Amazon distribution centers in Columbia County and facilities for UPS and FedEx in south Richmond County.
“We’re using the best data available from GDOT, which is from 2023, to understand the traffic volumes,” said Matheney. “We also take a look at the major freight generators in the area. For Augusta, some of the major areas where there’s industrial traffic are down in the southwest side of town, near the airport, where the paper mill is. So, you’ve got a lot of traffic coming from I-20 and I-520 going to those facilities. And then, the smaller box trucks and Amazon vehicles and everything, distributing those goods further into the network.”
The importance of efficiently moving freight through Georgia is also a focus for the Georgia Chamber of Commerce.
Chris Clark, President and CEO of the state Chamber, included transporting goods as part of his just concluded “New Georgia Economy” tour, which ended in Augusta on June 18
Clark told the assembled business leaders the Georgia Transportation Alliance has been working on the issue for 15 years. He said the state has reached a particularly important crossroads in how it invests in infrastructure and transportation.
“I think there’s some information you don’t understand that you need to as business leaders and community leaders, particularly for this community,” he began.
“Over the next 25 years, we’re going to add over two and a half million people to the state of Georgia. Our workforce will increase. We’ll have three million more jobs, but we’ll also have a million plus more cars on the road, whole lot more air traffic, whole lot more trucks to deliver your goods and products around Georgia, so much so that we need to spend $84 billion over the next 25 years just to keep up with our current growth rate, just to move goods and products and people around the state of Georgia, that’s local and state, on top of what we already spend right now, which is around $3 billion a year.”
Clark said two things driving the increased freight traffic are that the ports of Savannah and Brunswick have become two of the busiest on the east coast. Additionally, manufacturing and agriculture growth will put more produce and commodities on the road.
“The value of our freight right now is around $675 billion. Guys, that will more than double, almost triple by 2050, almost every sector that you can imagine in Georgia’s economy, from agriculture to manufacturing, will grow at double to triple-digit growth, putting more demand on your roads and railroads and so we’re going to have a lot more truck cargo than you see right now,” said Clark.
Clark said improving roads and connectivity is just one part of the picture.
“We’ve also got to better utilize our rail system in Georgia,” he said as he showed a map of the state’s rail lines currently being used.
“What you see here is all the different rail lines, CSX, Norfolk Southern, a lot of our short lines, but you have to kind of look closely and you see a whole lot of dotted lines. Those are unused railroads right now. We’ve got to re-authorize and get some of those rail lines back online so that we can take traffic off of the roads and put on railroads. We have to rethink how we invest in rail, and how we partner in rail to add more capacity. What you see out west is a lot of double-deck trains. You got a little of that here, but not a lot. You know why? Our bridges are too low. So, how we invest in this is going to be critical for us long term.”
“Our goal is to make the system function as well as it possibly can, and that helps those business leaders and those businesses to move freight around the area in an efficient way,” Matheney said. “As those businesses are able to be successful, they will continue to grow. And as they grow, that means more tax base for the communities and so that’s kind of how everybody wins, right?”
ARTS MPO has launched an online survey, to identify what residents and businesses feel are the issues as they exist today and offer suggestions on how to improve the freight plan.
“Everybody experiences life in a slightly different way, we all have different places that we’re going to and from, and so it’s important to gain the public’s insight and views on where they’re seeing conflicts,” he said, adding, “But it’s also very important to get the business leaders input of the area as well and how their businesses are operating and issues that they’re seeing as they’re trying to move goods in and out of the area and around the area.”
The survey is at: https://www.artsfreightplan.com/survey.htm.
Matheney anticipates the survey will be active until the end of July. The goal is to have the plan finalized by mid-September and formally adopted by ARTS in November.
The ARTS policy committee will get an update on the regional freight plan during its meeting on July 25. It will be on the third floor of the municipal building at 11:00 a.m. It will also be live-streamed at https://us02web.zoom.us/j/9946694292.
Matheney anticipates a series of public meetings will be scheduled in late August and early September.
