DOT to install I-85 cable barriers starting late summer, early fall
BY KERRI TESTEMENT
Motorists are being warned: Come late summer, those won’t be sidewalks being installed in the median of Interstate 85.
Instead, those two-foot wide concrete pads will run under a new cable barrier system designed to prevent deadly cross-over wrecks.
Already, the Georgia Department of Transportation is receiving plenty of “silly questions” related to a similar project in Forsyth County, where crews are installing 13.3 miles of cable barrier along Ga. Hwy. 400, according to spokesperson Teri Pope.
“It’s not sidewalks. It’s illegal to walk on (I-85) and we don’t encourage anyone to walk on (I-85). This is to improve safety,” Pope said.
The Georgia DOT will install a cable barrier system along 41.3 miles along I-85 from Ga. Hwy. 20 in Gwinnett County, through Barrow, Jackson and Banks counties.
The $6.1 million project will end at the Franklin County line, where cable barriers along the interstate now extend to Hart County.
Construction — which will also include replacing some guardrails — is expected to start by late summer or early fall, Pope said.
Despite hundreds of “silly” inquires about the “sidewalks” along Ga. 400, the cable barrier system is viewed as a life-saving tool.
“It used to be — when cars weren’t so powerful and speeds weren’t so high and cars didn’t weigh as much — vehicles couldn’t cross that really wide grassy median,” Pope said. “It was enough. It’s not enough anymore.”
And that’s why the DOT is installing cable barrier systems along some of Georgia’s limited-access roads to prevent cross-over wrecks.
The cable barrier system includes four steel cables pulled tightly together by a series of posts anchored by a concrete pad, Pope explained.
State transportation officials have said the cable barriers have helped prevent vehicles crossing the median and striking vehicles going in the other direction. In May 2007, the DOT said the cable barrier in Franklin and Hart counties stopped four potential cross-over wrecks in a single weekend on I-85.
The DOT will also install 22.3 miles of cable barrier on I-985, between I-85 and U.S. Hwy. 129 (Jesse Jewel Parkway) for $3.8 million. Nationwide Fence and Supply Company, of Chesterfield, Mich., is the contractor for all of the barrier projects.
