ACC Commission blocks North Ave roundabout & road diet, risking “historic” grant

UPDATE 6/3/26: Last night, the mayor and commission accepted the original, staff-recommended four-lane concept for the RAISE grant.

UPDATE (3/4/26): ACC Manager Robert Cowell reported last night that the US Congress has extended the RAISE grant deadline significantly, which should allow Athens to make full use of the $25 million after all.

UPDATE (5/15/25): ACC staff have informed the mayor and commission that it would be impossible to continue with Thornton’s proposal due to the tight deadlines for the grant. They are recommending that the commission give them permission to convert the grant to a planning grant in the hopes of being able to keep a small fraction of the $25 million.

The ACC Commission has rejected a $25 million grant concept intended to improve safety along the dangerous North Avenue corridor. Instead, they approved a concept created by a third party not employed by the ACC government, potentially putting the grant at risk.

Contents

The plan
Community opinion
North Avenue: a dangerous road
Commission opinion
A “historic” opportunity at risk
Next steps

The plan

The ACC government won the $25 million federal grant – the largest such grant Athens has ever received – to improve safety on North Avenue back in 2022. The original plan included a multi-use path, stormwater improvements, green space and public transit enhancements with a roundabout added a bit later. It was heralded by US Senator Jon Ossoff as a “historic” investment that would “improve connectivity and safety for residents in Athens.” 

Yet, the plan is now in jeopardy after the ACC Commission rejected the recommended concept created by AECOM Technical Services, Inc. at the request of ACC staff. In its place, the commission approved a plan drafted by Quaison Payne, an engineer with Payne Construction Group, LLC, at the request of Commissioner Ovita Thornton.

While the original grant concept involved “reimagining” North Avenue to dramatically improve safety for drivers, pedestrians and bicyclists, Thornton’s plan will keep the corridor mostly as-is, although she is proposing some intersection and pedestrian safety improvements. Her plan also calls for adding bike lanes next to the car lanes, either in a completely unprotected way or placed behind a narrow curb for a very small amount of protection.

The plan recommended by ACC staff called for removing one southbound travel lane, adding a multi-use path for pedestrians and cyclists and adding a roundabout at the SR-10 loop, which is one of the most dangerous intersections on the corridor.

An alternate version of this plan favored by the local government’s Athens in Motion Commission called for removing a northbound travel lane as well, which would leave one lane on each side with a middle turn lane.

It appears that Thornton and other commissioners did not seriously consider the three-lane option, which would have provided the most safety for road users. Thornton even spoke out against the recommended four-lane concept, saying that her constituents did not want these roadway improvements.

“If we’re just pushing through something because we’ve got $24 million and it doesn’t take care of the problems, let them take the money back,” Thornton said in October. “Now that’s not my wish, $24 million is a lot…[but] I don’t know why we don’t go to our constituents first, I just don’t understand that. We keep selling our soul to the Devil because of money.”

Community opinion

Thornton says that her constituents were not aware of the plan until recently. However, ACC staff began public engagement on this project as early as September 2023. 

Staff distributed fliers, held public information sessions and distributed a bilingual online survey that had 258 respondents. 55% of the survey respondents said they lived near North Avenue and 83% traveled along the corridor at least once a week. While some survey respondents opposed safety improvements like roundabouts, pedestrian and traffic safety was a big concern residents described in the survey. Residents expressed a desire for safer crosswalks, for filling in sidewalk gaps or adding a multi-use path, for improved lighting and for bus stop improvements.

Judging by the online survey, the project has wide public support. However, some of Thornton’s constituents and other residents objected strongly to the recommended concept in-person at a public meeting in October and also at last Tuesday’s commission meeting.

“The four-lane [configuration] has worked for us. It’s worked for the neighborhood, for the community for many years. We have four lanes [five with the center turn lane] and we feel safe,” said Teresa Williams, who lives close to North Avenue. “We do not want to be congested, sitting in traffic because you people want to change our road to bring a roundabout.”

“It appears that [ACC staff are] allowing this money to guide their better judgment and they are rushing to use it at the expense of community needs and wants,” said Xavier Walker.

North Avenue: a dangerous road

Before 2022, ACC staff had applied for this prestigious RAISE (Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity) grant for four years in a row before finally securing it after the election of Ossoff and US Senator Raphael Warnock. While the original grant applications had more to do with replacing the North Oconee River bridge than adding a roundabout, staff now feels that the roundabout, road diet and other safety improvements are needed.

The road diet keeps the recommended project concept within the footprint of the existing road, but it’s also important because North Avenue is somewhat dangerous. 

Lauren Blais, chair of the Athens in Motion Commission, told APN that North Avenue has been a high-priority road to receive safety improvements for many years.

“There have been 452 crashes along the corridor from 2018 to 2023. 32% of those were injury or fatality crashes,” Blais told the ACC Commission last Tuesday. “One of the reasons why we finally got this $25 million grant from the federal government [is because] another person lost their life on this corridor [after a car crash]. They were walking on the sidewalk.”

Blais told APN that North Avenue’s current five-lane configuration was designed for a large amount of traffic that the road only receives during UGA game days or other special events. Blais says that, according to traffic data, North Avenue can accommodate 40,000 or more cars per day without congestion but it only gets 13,200 on an average day. 

That’s less than Prince Avenue, which sees about 15,000 cars per day. North Avenue would have “no problem” accommodating normal traffic volumes into the future even with only three lanes, according to Blais.

In fact, the small amount of traffic on North Avenue right now encourages speeding and makes the corridor more dangerous for all users. Blais says these design flaws can be fixed by reducing the number of lanes and adding a roundabout.

“The roundabout at Whitehall and Milledge reduced crashes by 80%. We’re not talking 10%, 20% or even 50%,” Blais told APN. “Crashes were reduced by 80%.”

Roundabouts also tend to improve traffic flow and reduce delays compared to four-way intersections.

If there are typically no issues with congestion on North Avenue but there are significant and ever-present safety concerns, why did the commission oppose the staff-recommended four-lane option?

Commission opinion

The answer is that some commissioners, including Thornton and Commissioner Dexter Fisher, want to prioritize travel by car along North Avenue over other modes of transportation.

“We’re sacrificing a [car] lane for bikes? I just don’t want to sacrifice [the car lane],” Fisher said at the October work session. “We’re trying to be a bike community, but we’re not.”

“I’m a firm believer, build it and they come. So if you build bike lanes, they’re going to come,” Thornton said. “I ain’t trying to invite the bikes, okay? I’ll be real clear.”

Commissioner Jesse Houle was the only other commissioner to express a strong opinion on the project. 

“Almost two-hundred people have had their lives ended or [were injured] by the current design of this corridor [in the last five years]. It’s a five-lane road that’s so dangerous to cross at such high speeds that it’s going to keep giving us that,” Houle said at the meeting last Tuesday. “I don’t feel I can in good conscience support a five-lane option.”

Houle then asked their colleagues to hold a vote on the four-lane staff-recommended option, but no other commissioner supported doing so, not even Commissioner Carol Myers who typically supports bike and pedestrian safety projects. Myers’ reasoning was that she did not want to support the project over the objections of some living nearby.

“If we’re going to move forward with these kinds of projects, we have to include the community and we have to get everyone to buy-in,” Myers said. “We need to be building coalitions and listening to each other.”

With the failure of the recommended option, attention turned to Thornton’s proposal which would keep North Avenue at five-lanes and remove the roundabout and multi-use path from the project. This motion passed 9-1, with only Houle opposed. 

A “historic” opportunity at risk

Thorton’s concept for the North Avenue project is such a wide departure from grant criteria that it’s possible it will no longer qualify for federal grant money. 

Either way, ACC staff cannot use the design as is because it was created by a third party which does not contract with the ACC government. Payne Construction Group may not have the necessary qualifications to even apply for such a contract. Therefore, staff will need to evaluate Thornton’s concept for feasibility using local taxpayer dollars, a process that will take time, according to Rani Katreeb, the assistant director of ACC Transportation and Public Works.

Therefore, Thornton’s design will cause months of delay, putting the project at serious risk. The grant requires Athens to be under contract with a construction company by September 2026 or lose the money. It’s possible there could be a deadline extension, but that would require an act of the US Congress, which may not happen.

“There is considerable risk that the North Avenue RAISE grant project will not meet the mandated deadlines stated by [the Federal Highway Administration] and that these deadlines will not be extended,” ACC staff wrote to commissioners in the agenda item. Even without the extra delay caused by Thorton’s redesign, staff stressed that “there is no guarantee that these deadlines will be met.”

Losing this enormous grant would be a devastating and unprecedented blow to traffic safety advocates in Athens.

“We’re in such uncharted territory,” Blais told APN. “This is not the kind of grant that we get every couple of years. This $25 million was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make transformative change to this corridor. There’s not going to be another $25 million to fix North Avenue ten years from now. This is our opportunity. With the commission-defined option by Commissioners Thornton and Taylor, they’re throwing a lot of that opportunity away.”

Blais worried that traffic safety projects across the county would be at risk because of the commission’s decision.

“If we lose this grant, I don’t know what that means. It’s not just about North Avenue,” Blais said. “I’m concerned that the only places that are going to get safe infrastructure are going to be the rich areas of town, which is the exact opposite of what we’re trying to do. There is such a huge equity component to the plans, but we’re losing and just perpetuating the unsafe, inequitable infrastructure. It’s troubling to me.”

Next steps

The local government has spent about $760,000 on the North Avenue project to date. Over the next few months, they will redesign the project concept, or what’s left of it, according to Thornton’s specifications. This will also be at local taxpayer expense. After they have a workable concept, they would need to spend another $3 million of local funds to create the actual engineering schematics needed to make the project a reality.

That $3 million would be refunded if Athens ever does receive the grant money. On the other hand, it would not be refunded if Athens misses the September 2026 deadline. 

That means the ACC Transportation and Public Works Department has a difficult decision to make in the first half of next year. They may choose to continue the project, putting $3 million on the line in the hopes that they would be able to meet the deadline. But if they feel the extra delay is too great, they would ask the commission to pull the plug on the entire project to avoid wasting any more money.

If everything goes as planned, the North Avenue project is estimated to be complete by August 2031.

CORRECTION (5/15/25): Some minor errors in the original article have been corrected. For example, the level of bike lane protection in Thornton’s plan has been clarified. The article previously stated that there was no bike lane protection at all in Thornton’s proposal (when there is a very small amount in one of the drawings but not the other).

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